About awakening the artist within

                                Cittadella            

                                  

In a couple of weeks time it'll be mid summer;

the night of which, here in the Sibillini mountains, a strange and fascinating ancient ritual is repeated, where young men climb up to the top of Mt. Sibilla for a rendezvous with young maidens.

whose beauty is a wonder to behold and whose powers of enchantment and seduction are befitting

of the fairies or witches (which they secretly are).

And thus follows a night of revelling and love which leave our young men in a delirium of exhaustion, waking at sunrise to find that their beauteous maidens have vanished from the mountain top.

Legend has it that, unbeknown to the young men, the maidens were in fact fairy creatures, half human and half goat, with goats legs, and that this is why they disappear before the break of day, to avoid their treachery being discovered.

And that they, before the coming of the following summer, give birth to girls with goats legs who almost immediately, magically, grow to maturity and beauty to then practise their fairy like powers readying for the next mid summers night revels.

The old Nature religions still flourish in this part of Marche and I could tell many a tale of healers who would be first call for folks with wounds or sickness; amongst even doctors, judges, caribiniari, builders, farmers, whoever, even those who had a curse put upon them (myself included)

I'm linking here a blog about Cittadella, our creativity playground beneath the majestic mountain of Vettore. It might inspire those of you who are searching for the artist within yearning to be awakened, or practising artists who might like the idea of working with others is this extraordinary part of Italy

https://www.michaeleldridgestudio.com/workshops/

On this site you can also find  pages about my work and dozens of blogs I've written pver the years of living here in Italy. At the top of each page there is a translation button which switches the text to Italian

Su questo sito potete trovare anche pagine sul mio lavoro e decine di articoli che ho scritto durante gli anni trascorsi qui in Italia. In cima a ogni pagina è presente un pulsante di traduzione che permette di visualizzare il testo in italiano.

PAINTINGS AND REELS

 

Galleries and studios are the traditional platforms for artists to show themselves and their art, along with websites and social media. It is a tiresome process and one which most often does little to soothe the ego (we all want to be recognised and loved, as artists)
But look at this

MoonArt Gallery is run by Nancy Biraschi and Luigi Lai who produce online analysis' of artists' work and who's reels are stunning and which indicate a sensitive and deeply felt understanding of the values and neccessity of contemporary art in its myriad forms

About Art and Life

 

                                                  Painting, forest series; Mike Eldridge

A book well worth reading, 'the work of art' by Adam Moss. An eye opener for creative people

The author takes us through a convolution in a maze, a journey into what happens in the minds, actions, and the ups and downs of the processes of creativity. He tracks down and investigates and then interviews over a length of time, painters, sculptors, poets, writers, playwrights, chefs, dancers and in fact every type of creative person imaginable.

I read last week, coincidentally, from various sources, that when you look at a painting, in fact any form of creative art; that you are also looking into the soul of the artist; the very ingredients of what in every essence they are, as if these things are somehow ingrained inside, and are awaiting disclosure.

In fact, a lot of the stories in the book have made me laugh as they are almost all tragic and painful to read and I have had to put the book aside at times.

You can open the book at any one of the stories but in a circuitous way the are similar and all share something in common, they are about creative beings struggling with their own ghosts and phobias, almost as if they are at war with what they are trying to produce. But they don't give up and continue, continue, continue, until something in them shouts 'STOP!! They see, they recognise, that they have arrived and are surprised by what has been achieved.

Well, you know I always crack on about what the American artist and teacher Robert Henri wrote over a hundred years ago, that, 'The subject isn't to make art, it's to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable'. I was given a book by an artist friend a while back, 'The Creative Act' by Rick Rubin' And I've just picked it up to flick through it, and there on the very first page, is this very quote by Henri. Serendipitous; must mean something.

Most of the stories in Rick Rubin's book, I must add, are less grinding and more gentle. Because getting into that state of being that Henri wrote about, I have experienced, can also be found in the contemplation of nature, music, the friendship with other artists and the love of our friends and even spending quality time with our pets and animals. But also the eastern practices of meditation and Tai Chi, Ci Kung. And lots of other gentle things that nurture and quieten our restive controlling minds. My personal way is to wander around my studio looking at paintings, contemplating them,some from way back and listening to them and often finding one that was never finished, and dappling with white paint here and there, or splashing it with a colour, and, bingo, voila ! I'm in

My creativity workshops in Italy are of the latter kind.

In the meantime, wishing you all a fruitful and laughter filled year ahead on this auspicious day of Imbolc, the return of the light

Michael

michaeleldridgestudio.com

whatsapp +39 3283535358

email, micermice@gmail.com

On being an artist (pt 2)

 

About VG

I think it's rather wonderful that artists can travel back over 150 years to draw upon comments by the various impressionists (they never called themselves that),and show their relevance to creativity in our modern times.

If you ever have the opportunity to read 'Van Gogh The Life' by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, you will discover, within this meticulous and lengthy research, that we harbour so many myths about the artist that are completely untrue. It is fatuous to name them all and anyway you will discover them for yourself.

But there are a couple of things which interest me concerning his working methods which are relevant today, especially to artists who are also teachers of creativity; how to start and continue a painting, sculpture, poem, the construction of music or choreography in dance or theatre etc.

I remember going to Paris some years back to see a little exhibition of Vincents's letters to his brother Theo. They were translated into English and most of them made me laugh and cry in their sadness .

In one funny one, he moaned to Theo that he was forever being asked by folks how he started a painting.'But don't they know? Isn't it obvious? I just splash a colour over the canvas, let the paint dry for a couple of days, come back to canvas and take the image where it wants to go'.

This had a powerful effect to me and, incidentally, it is a method I use in my workshops to sidestep the fear of the empty white canvas. It is play, and draws upon the child in us.

Another surprise was that his famous landscapes were an amalgam of bits and pieces of various drawings he made during his wanderings; a hill, here, a town there, a sky however. So like Cezanne and Gaugin, he was an abstract painter. The images,orchestrated through him, are telling us a story that they want to convey.

So, by way of a (near) example, I am showing you above a painting I made a few days ago; incidentally during the days around the USA election, the continuing wars in Ukraine and the genocide in Palestine. It was not a story I'd conceived nor does it have any message I'd wanted to convey. It just arrived and I got (from somewhere) the instruction STOP, don't go any further (this is an important word for artists by the way (including Chefs)).

As is my practice, I sent it out to artist friends and other folks who's opinion I respect, and they each have seen something in the image.

As the American artist and teacher Robert Henri wrote over a hundred years ago

'A great painter will know a great deal about how he did it, but still he will say, 'How did I do it?' The real artist's work is a surprise to himself '

That sort of sums it up.......sort of...

Michael

michaeleldridgestudio.com

On being an artist

 

A great painter will know a great deal about how he did it, but still he will say, 'How did I do it?' The real artist's work is a surprise to himself (Robert Henri)

Robert Henri was an American artist and teacher who wrote this over a hundred years ago. Most of his teaching was by post. His students would mail their work to him and he would reply with his comments and encouragement. He kept records of all this correspondence over the years and they are collated in his famous book 'The Art Spirit'

The artist and creativity coach Peter Moolan-Feroze recently wrote on Linkedin, about how on one of his creativity workshops (I'm sure on most), his business students had entered another world, one  of absorption as they painted, a kind of empty timeless space where creativity flowed though into their group paintings; images emerging as if by magic which surprised them and made them feel happy.

This painting of mine above, is a good example of the meaning of Robert Henri's comment.

 I'd been simply musing in my studio, listening to music and fiddling about mindlessly, and this painting, which I'd painted six months ago, caught my eye, I took it off the wall and sat it on my lap and decided to read it like a story. 

 If you look to the top, a bit to the right , you'll see a man, maybe an angel, in a blue cave being discovered or even rescued by a white dog. And it shocked me to realise that I have been for ages mourning for my dog Bessie who died some years back. And I have yearned to have another one. I have tried helping out in kennels to compensate, but it breaks my heart to see such sadness in their eyes

Then at the bottom middle of the painting, you'll see a bunch of colour shapes which my artist friend in Santiago, Mariana Fassnidge describes as follows

'I don't know what you will make of my very first impression of this painting....it is about your childhood (left at the bottom I see a child standing back to me and holding a string of kites, colours, happiness...and behind that lovely world something black and strong is covering the blue sky'.

I honestly cannot recall painting an angel and a dog, and nor of being, until now, conscious of  the images which Mariana sees.

And I don't know where all these possible stories and ingredients come from when they are gifted to artists. So, in the meantime I can decide it is from a Muse, or some Greek God of Creativity, or the Universe, pouring stories and images into our unconscious minds, probably as we sleep.

I'm sure that this ia a phenomenon which all artists, painters, writers, poets, etc experience often, if not always; soaking it all up and running with it; manifesting it in some form or other and putting it together out there into life.

Painting as story telling

 Lighting the Dark

Michael

michaeleldridgestudio.com

Walking back to childhood

But I know that, when I paint, time stops, and I travel to a place that is not this planet; I dance on the winds of the Universe'

Kreeg Zeuas

Lovely that.

I told a story to our group of artists last weekend about when I ran a photography workshop in the west of England. And when one participant, an eminent photographer, had guffawed at my request for the group to go out and only take photos of things that asked them to. He was waiting for me when I returned to the studio with anger in his eyes but I got in first and asked 'How old were you when your parents told you not to waste your time playing but to get back to your studies and learn?

Were you maybe seven years old?

He burst into tears and sobbed.

As did a lady sitting next to me in my art group this week.

So, there it is. We have to track back and find (it is never really lost) the child within us.

michaeleldridgestudio.com

 

August heat, thoughts and invitations

The morning finds me at our local beach doing my Ci Kung. It's 07.00 and warming up fast and soon hitting 40C, they say, by midday

One of the reasons I don't hold workshops in August here in Le Marche, is because of the extreme heat throughout the Province, and the added danger in being out in the sun at high altitudes at Cittadella our mountain retreat in the Sibillini National Park

And this summer it's exceptional and going for a cool morning swim is my way of coping and I'm on my way home within an hour where my studio is bearable with AC and all,

Those of you who practice Ci Kung or Tai chi, would know that it is not just a physical exercise but also a way of awakening the entire body of a morning, the heart and brain in particular- It is also a time to practice right breathing and to open all the senses; all these things together clearing the mind of clutter.

It is how we begin our mornings at my workshops and I am daily reminded of the words of the American teacher and painter Robert Henri 120 years ago

'The object isn't to make art

it's to be in that wonderful state

which makes art inevitable'

So we make art, of course we do, but, if I teach anything at all, it is what it is to be an artist, and how to arrive at this state.

You could say, 'I simply light the blue touch paper, and then sit back and watch.

And you're probably thinking 'Sounds pretty easy to me'

And sometimes it is and sometimes it's not

It depends

It depends on how deeply inside a person's mental cupboard the creative child has been locked.

A child which is beseeching to be released.

There, I've  already said to much

Best advice?

Join my next workshop at Cittadella in September 😀

It's Italy

It's when the mountain storms begin and when the streams and waterfalls gush with water again

It's where the landscape is breathtakingly beautiful

Where Silvio, the owner, and his staff are such kind people and treat us as family

Where we go on visits locally everyday, to hot pools, waterfalls, to Sanctuaries

Where we work in our outdoor studio on afternoons

Where we delight in tasting the very best traditional Italy food and wine.

And (most importantly) where we create exceptinal art, in an atmospere of freedom and fun.

You can read lots more about me on my website

Where you'll find my my blogs, paintings and podcasts.

Here is a painting created by Raquel Ferrer and myself , on a one2one a couple of weeks back, as a present to Silvio for his kindness,

And here is a recommendation by Raquel recalling the experience

'Thank you Michael for sharing these days with me, showing me how to create a powerful bubble - choosing what to bring and let in, and what to leave out - And thank you for introducing me to the world of Chi Kung and so much more.
I enjoyed playing in colours and giving myself full permission to be an artist. I have found my fun mindfulness - I can stay focused, and I can completely forget about the external world and noise when I paint - and I love it!'

Details

Next workshop dates September 5 to 11

Cost of workshop E190

Cost of accomodation at Cittadella from B&B to half board E35 to E75  per day (depending on whether share or single option).

Number in group limited to 12

Contact Michael for any questions you may have; micermice@gmail.com, 

Tel. whatsapp +39 3283535358

My very best wishes and I hope very much you can join us in September

Michael