OliveOyl
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You know how you go looking at one artist and then you end up finding another? Well, I was looking in “my neck of the woods” (New England) and came across NEIL WELLIVER (1929-2005). He studied with Joseph Albers (color!) and later taught painting at Cooper Union and Yale. Unfortunately, the “Silver Fox” (nickname!) got into trouble with sexual harassment there (ugh!)...but let’s put that aside for now.
Once “The SF” moved to Maine, he became known for his landscapes. And yikes, he goes into them Maine woods...deep! Like to the parts where you get lost forever and all the trees are broken into bits and you get eaten by bears and wolves. He’d take a 70lb backpack with him and only 8 tubes of paint and do studies in 3 increments at 9 hours each. Back at his studio, he’d turn some of them into 8 ft x 10 ft paintings where he’d start in the upper left hand corner and slowly work his way to the bottom right. You can see he was quite a meticulous guy.
He loved painting outdoors but he said, “Painting outside in winter is not a macho thing to do. It's more difficult than that. To paint outside in the winter is painful. It hurts your hands, it hurts your feet, it hurts your ears. Painting is difficult. The paint is rigid, it's stiff, it doesn't move easily. But sometimes there are things you want and that's the only way you get them.”
He died of pneumonia (hmmmm) but before then, he had his fair share of tragedy, too. Wiki: “In 1975, he lost his home, and studio, and all the art therein to a fire. In 1976, a daughter died, followed soon thereafter by the death of his second wife. In 1991, one son was killed, and a second son died.”
Is he my most favorite artist ever? Well, no. Does he deserve his own thread with capital letters? Probably not. But I DO like the look of all “the sticks” (in the works below) which show a commitment to a certain level of obsessiveness that I can appreciate. Although these are more realistic paintings than not, they also look abstracted. Designed. Maybe its because of the colors, which he says he WASN’T interested in getting exact. Instead, he wanted to find colors that look like they’re “surrounded by air.” Not sure what he meant by that but I DO like his sense of color, and their crispness. And I like the captured solitude.
Once “The SF” moved to Maine, he became known for his landscapes. And yikes, he goes into them Maine woods...deep! Like to the parts where you get lost forever and all the trees are broken into bits and you get eaten by bears and wolves. He’d take a 70lb backpack with him and only 8 tubes of paint and do studies in 3 increments at 9 hours each. Back at his studio, he’d turn some of them into 8 ft x 10 ft paintings where he’d start in the upper left hand corner and slowly work his way to the bottom right. You can see he was quite a meticulous guy.
He loved painting outdoors but he said, “Painting outside in winter is not a macho thing to do. It's more difficult than that. To paint outside in the winter is painful. It hurts your hands, it hurts your feet, it hurts your ears. Painting is difficult. The paint is rigid, it's stiff, it doesn't move easily. But sometimes there are things you want and that's the only way you get them.”
He died of pneumonia (hmmmm) but before then, he had his fair share of tragedy, too. Wiki: “In 1975, he lost his home, and studio, and all the art therein to a fire. In 1976, a daughter died, followed soon thereafter by the death of his second wife. In 1991, one son was killed, and a second son died.”
Is he my most favorite artist ever? Well, no. Does he deserve his own thread with capital letters? Probably not. But I DO like the look of all “the sticks” (in the works below) which show a commitment to a certain level of obsessiveness that I can appreciate. Although these are more realistic paintings than not, they also look abstracted. Designed. Maybe its because of the colors, which he says he WASN’T interested in getting exact. Instead, he wanted to find colors that look like they’re “surrounded by air.” Not sure what he meant by that but I DO like his sense of color, and their crispness. And I like the captured solitude.
