Woolgathering

For the first thirteen years of my life my father was in the military, and like most military families, we moved a lot. I think we may have moved a lot even by military standards. Every 2 to 3 years a moving van pulled up to the house and everything we owned was wrapped in paper and packed in brown cardboard boxes. California, Massachusetts, Virginia, Kentucky, Michigan… we lived all over.

My father preferred colder climates, although the military didn’t really give him a choice. He could make requests, but they were viewed as suggestions, not rules.

“In colder climates,” my father would say, “people have been forced to scrape their living from the cold earth. They’ve learned discipline. They’ve learned to work hard and appreciate every little thing they have, something you don’t learn when all you do is lay around on a beach all day eating bananas.”

Being of Irish and Swedish descent, and having grown up in New England, I suppose his perspective is understandable. My mother, on the other hand, had no preference. Coming from Japan, America was an exciting, exotic place and she wanted to see as much of it as possible. She used to jokingly call us gypsies, which in many ways we were. Every few years we were uprooted and planted somewhere new. A new house, a new school, a new set of friends. We were always in a state of packing or unpacking.

My older sister, Christine, and me in front of our house at Fort Knox, KY.

We lived in military housing: spare, transient spaces… ugly, cheerless boxes with stark white walls and gray linoleum floors. Spaces that held no trace of their previous occupants and would hold no trace of us after we left. Like the people of cold climates, we had to dig deep to find the beauty in these homes.

On the blank white walls my parents would hang the black-lacquer-with-mother-of-pearl-inlay Japanese tabletop (which had been converted to wall art when its legs had been damaged), my father’s bagpipes, and the stuffed sailfish. In the living room they would display the Japanese kokeshis on the Early American furniture. And in this culturally-schizophrenic home we would settle for the next 2 to 3 years. (Later, a stuffed deer’s head, which my little sister, Katy, dubbed Charlie, would join the sailfish. Charlie’s hooves were made into gun-holders, which were positioned below his head… giving him the appearance of being in some sort of drywall stockade, forced to carry the weapon that had been his demise.)

What does this have to do with art? I’ll get to that in a minute. Or two.

In direct contrast to the featureless military houses we lived in, there was Japan. We would periodically visit my relatives in Tokyo: a place that was anything but stark and gray. My grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins were warm and colorful. We made friends with the kids in my grandparent’s neighborhood. The houses were different, the food was different, the smells were different… sight, sound, touch, taste… everything was different. It was sort of like going from black-and-white Kansas to Technicolor Oz.

Trips to Japan: With my Japanese grandmother; with my friend Yugi who lived down the street from my grandparents; with my sister, Christine, and our grandparents, uncle, aunt, and cousin.

Two different worlds. East. West. Two opposites that somehow managed to be very normal, very natural.

Moving all the time teaches you to be fearless… and curious. Some of the places we lived were interesting, others less so, and some were exotic (we lived in Hawaii for a year before my Dad requested to be transferred away from that banana-infested place). Being constantly presented with new places and new faces is probably not a bad thing—it stretches your mind.

But it can also be lonely.

You learn to enjoy solitary activities, like drawing, writing, and reading. I loved books. I loved the illustrations, I loved the stories and I even tried writing my own. I was probably the only ten-year-old in the country who asked for a typewriter for Christmas. I saved my allowance until I had enough money to—against the advice of all those After School Specials—buy some friends. The Hardy Boys, the Borrowers, Lucy, Edmund, Peter and Susan…I loved all of them. They were the best kinds of friend because, when it was time to move, I could carefully pack them in brown cardboard boxes and take them with me.

Again, what does this have to do with art?

From roughly 2003 until 2007 I was fascinated by bright color. Vivid, intense color. The colors of tropical fish. In fact, I painted a lot of fish. Recently, I have become more interested in muted color. Colors without color. Warm grays, cool grays, soft browns, green-browns, red-browns, and all the beautiful ranges of whites: from warm eggshell to blue winter-white. They are colors that, like those cold climates, you have to work a little harder to appreciate. It’s easy to see the beauty in a bright red ruby; it takes some effort to see it in a dull gray stone.

Glenn and me

My friend Glenn and I have known each other since high school. He is my best friend. If I could, I would pack him in a box and take him wherever I go. We’ve been through the pain of adolescence together, survived broken homes together, and even—in our teenage years—both got arrested (although not together). My arrest was better, much more dramatic… in that lessons-learned-TV-Movie-of-the-Week sort of way. His was kind of lame. [Note: the "arrests" were more like "stern-talking-to's" and did not involve handcuffs, firearms, or anyone being thrown to the ground.]

But anyways, that’s another post.

Whenever we reminisce about old times, he always asks me, “How do you remember all this stuff?” I don’t know. Maybe I remember more than most people—or at least more than he does.

Growing up as a gypsy, I suppose I developed the habit (cliché as it sounds) of packing memories into cardboard boxes along with everything else. When you are always on the move, you never stop feeling like an outsider. You are always starting over… observing, listening, memorizing. You store things and bring them out when you need them. A jacket when you’re cold. A copy of Treasure Island when you’re bored. Or a memory of your sister twirling around in the front yard in her favorite red dress and getting crapped on by a bird… when you are starting a strange, new school and feeling a little scared.

Lately I’ve been thinking about vanishing rural communities as metaphors for life, inevitability, change. About old ways of doing things vs. new ways of doing things, whether it be farming or creating art. Old vs. new. Traditional vs. modern. Opposites. But opposites that manage to work together and be very normal, very natural.

I’ve been doing a lot of packing and unpacking. Digging around in brown cardboard boxes.

In one of the boxes I found some buckets. White plastic buckets, the 5-gallon kind that have as many uses as duct tape. We used to (and still do) have them on Celtic Springs Farm. They were handy for storing any number of things from birdseed to baling twine. I remember seeing them in the barn… the new ones looking oddly bright-white against the dun-colored barn boards. The older ones—battered, cracked and dirty—looking as if they were trying hard to blend in and be inconspicuous. Surrounded by all the antique farm machinery, they looked completely anachronistic.

I thought about the buckets about a month ago while I was at work. I stopped what I was doing, and made a quick sketch.

Buckets sketch

Over the next few days, I rooted around looking for a few actual 5-gallon buckets and drew a more accurate sketch, paying attention to all the subtle little details that made each bucket unique (the squiggle at the base of the second bucket is a bit of baling twine I threw in for good measure).

Revised buckets sketch

I then scanned the sketch and overlayed it with some paper I dirtied up with coffee grounds to use as an underpainting for a new painting.

Buckets sketch, underpainting

The new painting is slowly taking shape.

Buckets painting, with barn boards background

Over the past several days I have been working on the background behind the buckets, the weathered barn boards. I have been painting all this digitally, in keeping with my experiments in combining paint and pixels… combining old and new methods. At a certain point, I will transfer the painting to a rigid surface, probably via gel transfer, and complete the painting using traditional media.

Buckets painting, with barn boards background 2

White plastic buckets. All the beautiful ranges of whites: from warm eggshell to blue winter-white. Some new, some old. Set against the old barn boards… all colors without color… dun-colors… warm grays, cool grays, soft browns, green-browns, red-browns. Muted colors that make you work to see their beauty. Dirty, plastic buckets, like outsiders, newcomers.

Old vs. new. Past, present, future. Time. Change. Inevitability. All One Big Thing.

The painting has a long way to go. I’ll keep posting its progress. In the meantime, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about a broadcast tower I pass on my way to work. At one particular stoplight, I have an unobstructed view of it. It makes me think of brussels sprouts.

But that’s another post.

This is one of my favorite poems. I don’t remember when I first read it, I just know it was a long time ago… maybe high school or college? I can’t even find the book I originally had it in. It must have been lost in the many moves I’ve made over the years, which is too bad since it would have provided a clue as to when I originally read it.

It’s a poem that has stayed with me, however, over the years. I still think about it from time to time, especially when the weather turns cold. And now, thanks to Google, I can read it whenever I want. I love the descriptions like “blueblack cold” … spare, unsentimental language.

Those Winter Sundays

Sundays too my father got up early
And put his clothes on in the blueback cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?

Robert Hayden
August 4, 1913 – February 25, 1980

My parents, Pete and Miyako, c. 1963.

Since childhood, I have had to fill out forms that request I identify my ethnicity by “checking one of the following boxes: White, Black, Hispanic, Native American, Asian/Pacific Islander, Other.” I never know which box to check. My father is of Irish/Swedish descent. My mother is of Japanese descent. I land somewhere in between.

After years of checking either “White” or “Asian/Pacific Islander” (depending on whether I had had a baloney sandwich or miso soup for lunch), I decided I would simply check “Other” and write “Rice Cracker” next to the box and be done with it.

People, in general, like things to be One Thing or The Other. Barack Obama is black. Well, actually, he is biracial. So is Halle Berry. But somewhere along the line, someone felt that they needed to be One Thing or The Other, and decided they were black. There are plenty of other examples… such as someone no one is tired of hearing about right now, Tiger Woods. And back in the 90s there was that whole thing with Michael Stipe… is he straight or gay? He replied he “didn’t like labels,” which was an inadequate answer for many who believe you need to be One Thing or The Other.

For years I lived in two different, creative worlds. At work, as a web/graphic designer, I created in the world of pixels. At home, as a fine artist, I created using traditional drawing and painting media. I enjoyed both, but kept them separate. Without even realizing it, I had decided that work was One Thing and fine art was The Other.

Stay with me. This is all going somewhere. I promise.

Celtic Springs Farm, Seven Valleys, PA

In 2007, I visited my father in Pennsylvania. He farms with draft horses and antique farm machinery. Visiting Celtic Springs Farm is like stepping back in time. Turning off Route 616 and onto the long, rutted driveway is like entering another world. While shooting photos of him and the horses, I thought about how only 48 hours earlier, I was building websites, optimizing graphics, assigning hex codes for colors… and now I was watching my father farm with hundred-year-old equipment on a 150-year-old farm. And I thought about how, when I got home, I would upload the photos and share them with family and friends all over the world who would view them using the Internets on their giant plasma screens while being served by robots in their Space Needle houses.

Past, present, future… all One Big Thing.

I hope I haven’t lost you yet.

My father is someone who marches to the beat of his own drum. It is a quality that, thanks to him, I admire. He likes to do things his own way… even if it means living in Amish country like it’s 1890. He has a phone, but it’s hidden in a cupboard in the kitchen. He has electricity, and a television, because my stepmother had to draw the line somewhere. He doesn’t, however, own a computer. He doesn’t know what WiFi is, or a blog, or CSS. He knows I graduated from art school and do something with computers and the internet, but that’s about it. I suppose he thinks it’s better than that clown school in Sarasota I kept harping about when I was twelve.

But it’s all cool. As long as I’m doing my own thing, my own way, he’s cool with it.

In 2007, I decided I wanted to do some new paintings of the farm. I had done some before, but it was a while ago and much had changed. A lot of the fields in the area were now covered in tract houses. The traffic on Zeigler’s Church Road, which runs along the back of the farm, sounded heavier and louder. There weren’t as many cows as there used to be. The barn was looking more weathered, the wooden bridge over the stream had washed away in a storm. Dad was looking older, everything was looking older.

The biggest change, however, was in me. I was different. Very different from the kid who left the farm and joined the military in the 80s. And I wanted to preserve all of it: these thoughts, this visit, these impressions. I could have whipped out my sketch book and done some graphite drawings or watercolor sketches. That’s what I would have done twenty years ago. But that would’ve run counter to the whole concept of change, and the malleability of identity over time. So instead, I unpacked my digital camera, and began recording with pixels.

Over the past 18 months I have been working on new mixed media pieces—the Meditation series. They are a combination of traditional and digital media… experiments in mixing pixels and paint. Celtic Springs Farm has been the subject in many of the pieces so far, but the farm, and scenes of vanishing rural communities in general, represent thoughts about larger subjects: aging, identity, patience, inevitability.

Using a combination of traditional and new media is an important part of this series. It is directly linked to my thoughts on identity, and who I was twenty years ago and who I am today. It comes from a very personal place, and one that may be difficult for anyone but me to understand. But it feels honest, and true and right. It is my hope that with each successive piece, I get closer to my vision, closer to success, closer to finding the right balance between the two media.

Mixing painting and photography, digital or otherwise, is nothing new. Andy Warhol, amongst many others, has done it before. But I’m not interested in doing Pop Art. I am interested in creating something that blends the traditional and the new seamlessly… where there is no clear delineation of where one starts and stops. I want to create something that is not One Thing or The Other.

One foot in the past, one foot in the future, recording the present.

Several people have asked me, “what part of this work is digital photography, and what part isn’t?” There really is no answer to that question, since by the time the painting is completed, it has become just One Big Thing. I realize that’s not a very satisfying answer to many, but it’s simply the truth. Ruminant, for example, may have started out like this:

Ruminant, early sketch

but just as one does when working in traditional media, there is a tremendous amount of revision, editing, and redrawing that occurs to tighten the composition. Ears were re-drawn and made symmetrical. Angles of heads were adjusted. Bodies were lengthened/shortened as necessary. Some of this was done digitally, with a stylus and graphics tablet, and some was done using graphite, paint, ink, and oilstick after the image was transferred to a rigid support. It was important to me that, in the end, the sheep look not like dumb farm animals, but rather possess a sense of dignity… they do, after all, symbolize noble thoughts (plus, by this time, I had really become very fond of them):

Ruminant, Sean W. Byrne, Copyright 2009, All Rights Reserved

It was also important that the final scene look timeless, like it could be 1890… until you look closer and notice, jutting above the treeline in the distance, a broadcast tower, a cell phone tower.

Incomplete Thought No. 2 started here:

Incomplete Thought No. 2, initial inspiration.

and ended here:

Incomplete Thought No. 2, Sean W. Byrne, Copyright 2009, All Rights Reserved

There really isn’t a way to draw a grid over the final painting and identify which sectors are photography, or paint, or India Ink… anymore than I could state that my left ear is Irish, my right eyebrow is Swedish, and my nose is Japanese.

Which brings us full circle to those forms I never know how to fill out (and if you’ve read this far, I thank you… this has been a very long post). Sometimes, you can’t check just one box. What if it really isn’t One Thing or The Other. What if it’s just a personal expression, made up of many different, blended parts. A Mixed Media Rice Cracker.

Ruminant & Incomplete Thoughts 1 - 4, Sean W. Byrne, Copyright 2009, All Rights Reserved

My new works Ruminant and Incomplete Thoughts Numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4 will be on display in the Exchange Gallery at the VAE from Dec 4 through 24, 2009.

The Opening Reception is Friday, Dec 4 from 6-9pm.

If you are able, please come on out! Exhibiting in the Exchange Gallery with me are fellow artists Alia E. El-Bermani, Kathy Brancato, Janet Harrell, and Mary Ann Scherr. Also at the Visual Art Exchange during the month of December is their annual A Sale for the Season, which is an exhibit of smaller, gift-sized works all priced under $300.

More information is available on the VAE website, including a map and directions to the gallery. Hope to see you Friday night!