Mr. John Pototschnik

I’m pleased to present the second part of this special interview withthe Akhriev (Ak-REE-ev) family: Melissa Hefferlin, husband Daud Akhriev, and son Timur.
In Part 1 we learned how Melissa, as a young 20 year old American made her way to Russia to study at the Russian Academy of Fine Art, where she met Daud. We also learned of the extensive training the Russian Government provided for its promising young artists. Daud and Timur are products of that system. All three are multi-talented, speak several languages, are trained in a variety of disciplines, and recipients of many awards. Daud and Timur were big winners in the Oil Painters of America national competition, held earlier this year in Dallas.
The final part of their very interesting interview deals with their diverse cultural and religious differences, how Daud and Melissa met and eventually married, and how their work has influenced the other. Timur shares his first impressions of America.
I know you’ll enjoy this. It’s a great story. Be sure to read Part 1 Here.

Melissa Hefferlin

You and Daud have such diverse backgrounds, both culturally and spiritually; how did you meet and eventually marry?
Daud had friends in my studio at the Academy, and so would sometime enter our studios to meet his friends for lunch. He asked them to invite me to his place for a dinner party, and I was smitten with his larger-than-life sense of humor and passion for painting. I also loved his work even then. He had ten times more of it than any of his colleagues (he was a graduating from the last year of the masters’ degree). I thought then that I’ d love to see him painting in the States with such huge talent, and not struggling to get by in the then-very-broken Soviet Union. Luckily, over the next four months, we spent a LOT of time together, and very quickly were inseparable. At the close of the school year when my time was finished and he was graduated, he accepted my invitation to “visit” me in the States, and we have been together ever since. It’ s true, though his family are Muslims from the Northern Caucasus, and I come from Seventh Day Adventists in Appalachia, we found that the values of hard work, love of family, mutual respect, doing all things to the best of your abilities, and passion for life were powerful overlaps. These overlaps are true for our extended families, too, and I am happy to say that our blended family of mixed heritage now adore one another powerfully. Of course sometime we had misunderstandings, but all families do. I wish more Americans had the opportunity to form bonds with people who seem different from themselves, as it is a powerful opportunity to grow and experience a broader spectrum of human life.

Has Daud’s work influenced what you do, and has your work had an impact on what he does?
Of course working near one another means we absorb something of the other to some degree. Daud most obviously gave me his work ethic, and understanding of the hours necessary to put into a finished studio piece of any profundity. My American education had shown me turning in work which at most had ten hours in it over the course of a week. Now I can spend months on a larger painting, or visit a piece off and on over a year to get it right. Before I lived with Daud, that sort of time expenditure was not within my comprehension. I also continue to learn from both Daud and Timur to be more mindful of composition. I’m an intuitive composer, and they both are much more mindful and methodical and intellectual about their compositions. (Cindy Procious, a painter currently residing in Chattanooga, is another fine sounding board on this matter to me.) While my instincts about composition remain a powerful guide to me, I do enjoy examining my choices from the perspective of Timur and Daud, and tweaking. You didn’t ask me about Timur, but I am now being super inspired by my son, who I think is just on fire. He’s super dedicated to painting things that are true for him, and not necessarily just beautiful. His series called “drifter” uses my nephew as inspiration/ model, and I admire that body of work intensely. Timur’s malcontent view on many modern practices, and on the world handed down to his generation, I find very “true,” and powerful, and I am inspired to do better. I love Timur’s color!!! Damn, that boy is a colorist. With Daud, I know in an obvious way, I gave him pastels. Daud hadn’t ever considered pastel seriously, nor had access to good ones. Now he’s an ace pastel painter, I’m proud to say. Also, when Daud was doing his masters in Russia, he was very monochromatic on purpose. He was wondering, how little color could he use and still say something well. I urged him back into his full spectrum of color. I also sent him out to paint landscape, which he’s thought of as school exercise. He blossomed and changed technically as an artist after a couple of years doing plein air all over the States and Switzerland, wherever generous people let a young couple visit and make art. I really did nudge him to do that, though quickly he took the bit in his teeth.

How would you describe the work you’re doing today?
The purchase of a studio in Spain has given me more time to focus on pieces in an uninterrupted way. I am enjoying exploring still life and figurative pieces more deeply. I have more time to finish things not necessarily more “polished” like Ingres, but more deeply to my liking. Exposure to an entirely new visual culture has been a shot in the arm. I love painting the flamenco friends I have, and the Spanish horse culture. I am really enjoying putting more love into my block printing. My subject matter is divided between still life, which is a real love of mine. I’m attempting to get more soul into still life, so that it’s less decorative and more soulful. And then I am painting lots of horses, riders and flamenco women. These are the things I love, the part of my life which gives me joy. So I want to paint them. I’m enjoying experimenting with glazes in oils, and then switching in the next painting to alla prima brushwork. I’m loving being a middle-aged painter, and having some skill already to where the media works with me, and playing is actually fun versus agony. I’ve also had some wonderful private students, long term students, and working with a new artist is always a fresh examination of what one believes. This has been fortifying.

Daud Akhriev

You were born of liberal Muslim parents and educated under an atheist communist system, have any of your beliefs changed since becoming a US citizen?
I was born into a family which followed traditions of Muslim heritage, but I lived in a village where there were representatives of almost every religion on earth. So living in the USA was very much like the way I was raised. The country being officially atheist did not mean that people were not privately believers, and in our village many people believed in their own home, privately, and the same is true in the USA, but though privacy is not necessary of course. Once being educated, all my best teachers were Jewish or culturally Christian (practicing to a more or less degree). So really, in that particular way, nothing much changed. I think the reason nothing changed in that department began with my first grade teacher, and then again with Zhukov in the children’s art school, I was always taught that “you are just another block building in humanity’s cultural achievement. Your job is to be strong and honest. When a child is so taught and so treated, that is a clear directive, and the atmosphere around the child who later becomes an adult is really not very important.

How would you describe the work you’re doing today?
Multi-faceted. I am doing many things simultaneously right now, all due to travel and the experiences which travel provides me. When I’m able to see different nature, and have new dialogs with artists and musicians and non-artists, I get new ideas for materials and subject matter. In the last two years I was in Italy, Maine, Andalusia, Russia, Morocco, and the countries expose me to so many art forms. There’s always painting. I’m working with oil and tempera now, which helps me to sharpen different skills. Working on a trip in watercolor makes you more direct and fast. Travel paintings I bring to the studio as reference material. I’m also working with clay sculpture, tile designs with drawings in wet clay tile. I still continue with one of my favorite series, called “Weathered People,” using lots of different people from around the world, including many fishermen. Within the “Weathered People” is a subset of paintings called “Wanderers.” I just finished a painting of a wanderer who was a weathered, troubled person who struck out on the road to wander, like a Hindu mystic, and he wandered and was beaten up by the elements, and had adventures, sad, happy and varied, and after years on the road he’s about to arrive home, finally at peace. My wife, Melissa, came in to the studio and made me very happy by saying, “Oh, he’s a peaceful man.” I like this series the best. My piece in the last OPA show was from that series. For the last two years I’ve been making and installing public mosaics. Mosaic helped me a great deal to express my affection for decorative art. It was so freeing to manipulate form in a non-realistic way. I enjoyed making my own ceramic tile for the mosaics, and then combining my tiles with Italian smalti, which are so rich in color and light.
Name three of the most significant things that have made you the artist you are today?
My teachers, my family and my friends. My personal connections set the tone for the artist’s vision. My teachers set the tone of ‘you have to know how to learn.’ They said to me, “Imagine that you are a sponge and collect all that you can, then release what is not useful.” However, you have to collect information first. My family and friends require of me to do what is right. My relationships with them help me discover what the right way is, what topics are important. That helps to shape my course. Perhaps I would add a fourth, the ability to travel. Travel allows me to meet people, see great art, and have conversations, testing what I believe and do…and of course, analysis of all input is essential.

Timur Akhriev

What were your first impressions of the United States?
The United States was great from the first time I ever set foot in this country. It was so different from Russia. I remember driving for the first time through Atlanta, I could not believe myself how amazing everything around me was. And, to this day, whenever I fly back from any place in the world it still feels more like home than any other place. America is a beautiful place.
 
 
 
 

Your work has similar textural qualities to that of your father, and yet in many ways is quite distinctive; how did you achieve your own voice while being surrounded by two strong artists in their own right?
I think we all have our influences that lead us to be who we are as artists. Russian school gave me a great training, but when one has two great colleagues (Melissa Hefferlin and Daud Akhriev) by your side its a great opportunity to learn more. As Akira Kurosawa said, “If you want to be a professional you have to remain a student.” I believe there is no end to how much one can learn and move forward, even if sometimes you feel like you’re standing in the same spot. I don’ t really know if I found my voice yet, I think I’m still searching.
Thank you, Melissa, Daud, and Timur for this wonderful and interesting interview. I and the readers of this blog are appreciative.

It is said that everybody has a story, and every life is interesting. I totally agree with that, it’s just that some people have lives that are more interesting than others, and in the process accomplish great things. That’s the way I feel about Melissa Hefferlin, Daud and Timur Akhriev. I call them the Ak-REE-ev family. I really have Suzie Baker to thank for suggesting this interview. I am so thankful that she did because communicating with Melissa via email, and with Timur on the phone, I have gained great admiration for this family. They are incredibly talented and versatile with a captivating and interesting story. All speak multiple languages and each have made significant contributions to this world through their art. Daud and son, Timur, are Russian, while wife and step-mom, Melissa, is American. Timur is not necessarily in favor of me calling Melissa his step-mom as he is adamant that he has two moms…and Melissa is one of them. They all live in Chattanooga, TN but spend a significant part of each year in Spain. At the 25th Annual Oil Painters of America National Show, held earlier this year at Southwest Gallery in Dallas, Daud (rhymes with cloud) was awarded the Silver Medal, just a tick away from the top prize of $30000, for his painting, “Harbor Conversations”. Meanwhile, son Timur received an Award of Excellence for his painting, “Youth”. This interview has been broken into two parts because of the extensive and thorough responses. This week is about their background and training. Next week we get a little more personal. You’re going to love this. Here is their story:

Melissa Hefferlin

As I understand it, at the age of 20, you went to Russia to study at the Russian Academy of Fine Art (the Repin Institute of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture) in what is now St. Petersburg. At the time you were the only American woman; that’s a pretty bold move for a young American girl. How did all that come about?
You’re right. At the age of twenty I went to study at the Russian Academy of Fine Art (you have the official name correct) in “ Leningrad” when it was still the Communist Soviet Union. I was not only the only American woman, I was the only American to study there during Communist times. Only J.M. Whistler studied there before I did, while his father built railways for the last Tsar, if I have the facts correct. I was studying painting at Otis/Parsons Los Angeles, and was rather unhappy with the emphasis on being fashionable. I met a Russian scientist who advised me that the Russians had the best art school in the world for Realism. At that time, maybe you remember 1980’s and 1990’s, we didn’t have many American destinations for the intensive study of Realism. I had to take the Russian man’s word for it, because there was no internet, there was no information on art schools in the Soviet Block, there were no ways to independently investigate the possibility. But I have always loved adventure, so I quit Otis/Parsons, sold my VW bus, and bought a ticket to Soviet Russia. (How I got a visa is a whole different story, and we don’t have time for it here.) When I arrived, the person who was supposed to meet and guide me had left the country, so a nice family my parents knew took me in. (When I was a pre-teenager, we were sent to Communist Russia as an exchange family for two years as a peace initiative on the part of President Carter. This program was run by the Academies of Science of both countries.) It’s a great piece of luck that I had no understanding of the difficulty of being accepted to the Russian Academy, because if I had known I might have given up. Being ignorant, I called all my host’s friends and found someone who knew someone in the Academy of Art, and got an interview appointment. After confusion and a very intimidating interview with some fifteen Academics (painters-educators who have received the highest educational level of the Academy of Arts of the country) in the mahogany board room, I was allowed to stay by an executive decision of the department head. They were mostly dumbstruck on how I got there, I think, and were willing to honor my gumption.

How long were you a student at the academy; how were you received, and what were you specifically hoping to learn?
I stayed for a year, like a year abroad. When I had my credits analyzed by an educational board in NYC, in that one year I had accumulated double the amount of studio hours required for a BFA in an American university. I was received with great curiosity, and mostly gracious welcome. I was the only American student out of 800, so I felt sometimes like an exotic creature in the zoo. When I arrived I was grossly underprepared, and performed far below the average student of my year. Most of my classmates had gone to art school for children for eight years, art high school for four years, and often art college for a BFA before coming to the Academy for six more years. Many were in their mid-thirties. I worked hard enough to nearly destroy my health. By the time I left, and with the encouragement and mentorship of both fellow students and professors, I was performing solidly with the middle of the class. That proved to have been one of the most useful periods of my life.
Your resume is quite impressive; what three things are you most proud of as an artist?
Thank you. You are very kind. Surely that my young self had the luck and determination to attend the Russian Academy during a time period when stellar painters were still teaching. The painters who mentored us were of a caliber and of a time period which simply does not exist there today. These men (and they were all men) had painted through the siege of Leningrad, had survived Stalin, had studied with fantastic masters themselves….This would be the event I’m most grateful for. No matter what else happens, my soul expanded and I received guidance from astonishing painters and that knowledge and experience will always be MINE. I met my future husband there. I maintain friendships of great worth to me twenty five years later. That’s number one. Secondly that I am privileged to make a living at a thing I love. I am aware of people who work labor to survive in profoundly unpleasant or repetitious or dangerous jobs (no matter how grateful they may be to have employment) and I am humbly grateful for the honor to be paid for my passion in visual arts. It’s a huge thing, yes? And on a humorous note, one of my favorite awards I was unable to accept. I entered a painting of heifers into the Kentucky State Fair. I’ve always loved State Fairs, and have an affection for the farmers of Tennessee and Kentucky, and even more for their bovines. I received a phone call that my cows were up for Grand Prize, but the judges felt they needed to inform me that the purchase prize money was 1/5 of the value of the piece. With regret I declined, but was pleased as punch with my heifers being selected. I also particularly enjoyed the honor at the Pastel Society annual juried show of the Salmagundi Award. I love that historic art club.

Daud Akhriev

You’re from Kazakhstan in Southern Russia, how is it that you came to America; when was that?
I was born in Kazakhstan because we were deported (so was my entire nationality) in 1944 to Kazakhstan from Ingushetia. After graduating from art college in the South of Russia, in the Caucasus, I then was accepted in the Leningrad Academy of Art, which is now the St. Petersburg Academy of Art (The Repin Institute). There in art school in Leningrad, I met Melissa where she was studying in Mylnikov studio with a friend of mine. When the school year ended she invited me to America and we made a life together. That was the summer of 1991.
 

At the age of eight you were singled out by the Soviet educational system to receive special training in art; what did that training involve, when and for how long were you a student?
The program I entered was officially a four year program. We were given tests, because the applicants were many. If you were accepted it was a 3-hour program after regular school, three times per week. Two months of the summer we were taught in plein air. I studied under Nikolai Vassiliovich Zhukov, who was at that time one of the top tier teachers for young students in the world, and much awarded. Even though our country was so closed by Communism, Zhukov had visitors from educational delegations from Japan, England, France, India, and others, to study his method of teaching the young people. We entered competitions all over the world and won medals in youth categories. Once, in that program, I won a medal with a personal letter from Indira Gandhi, and a set of Dutch paints. All the other kids wanted my Dutch paints. Legally the program was for children between 8 – 14. Before that, at first I was too young to enter the school because I was seven, but when the educators saw my drawings they allowed me to come illegally with the other students and attend the courses until the year I was accepted officially. In my memory, when I think about the best art schools I’ve known, I prefer that school even to the Academy, because the atmosphere was at least equal to the Academy. I preferred it because it was in an Art Nouveau mansion, with absolutely the best of the best architecture, the most fantastic teachers with a well-structured system for building a base in drawing, painting, composition, sculpture and art history. It was in Ordzhinikidze, which is now Vladikavkaz.

What are the significant differences between Russian academic training and what is typically found in the United States?
Russia has a wider range of exercises for training yourself to draw over and over and over until drawing from your head is effortless. I have never heard in a Western school where a drawing or painting will take 40 – 50 days, which our drawings at the Academy regularly did. We were expected to hone gesture drawing on our own time. We had models six days a week, five hours a day, plus evening drawing group three times per week. On top of that, all our art history teachers were well-known art historians from the Hermitage or Russian Museum, they were published authors on particular periods. So when you combine the theoretical education with teachers of that level (like having Andrew Wyeth teach you egg tempera), and you have lots of such teachers, it makes for a strong education. Also, we had the museums all free for us to enter and copy from Old Masters, with professors from the restoration department overseeing our copies. All the teachers focused on how to compose within any given shape…to use the space. And also for example in painting, when you have a painting of a model, the school was careful to give you assignments where the model was against a green background, then a black one, then a red one, in a situation with a lot of pattern, etc. Then they made it more complicated by putting two models, or three, which had to be proportional and harmonious. And, this is very different, the critiques were really critiques—-not designed to encourage students who are “ clients” of the school. The critiques were designed to eliminate your weaknesses, and they were ruthless in the best possible way. And while we lived humbly, we were given a stipend, a room in the dorm and art materials, so we could really focus on the work. Today, of course, that has changed a great deal.

Timur Akhriev

What was your childhood like in Russia?
My childhood in Russia was interesting for a lack of a better term. In 1991 we escaped war and moved from Vladikavkaz which is in the southern part of Russia. ( NOT VLADIVOSTOK!!!!!! AS MANY PEOPLE MISTAKE.) St Petersburg is up north. I was about 7 or 8 at the time and had to miss the whole year of school, but eventually did attend a public school for about two years before switching to art school. I think I had an easier time adjusting to the change as very young person than my family did.
As I told you on the phone, we kind of ended up being refugees within our own country and I think it made a very large impact on me.I think one might grow a thicker skin in situations like that, which sometimes can be a minus.

You were in art school from 1995-2002, eventually immigrating to America in 2002 to be with your father who came in 1990, and with, Melissa, your stepmother. While in school, with whom did you live, and how did you support yourself?
I entered an art school in 1995 and graduated in 2002, the same year I moved to US to live with my parents. My father moved to US in 1990 with my mom Melissa (if you need for some technical reason to call her step-mom you are welcome to do so, but I always considered her my Mother. I have two.) While I was attending school I lived in one apartment with my grandma Marietta, my two aunts Fatima and Diba and my sister Danna (it was packed). Because I was very young I didn’t have to support myself, most of my family had jobs and we had support of mom and dad who were already living in US. But if you are interested, I made my first sale when I was sixteen, it was a still life with a saddle and porcelain bull.

Like your father, at a young age you too began art studies in St Petersburg, and later in Florence; please tell us what your training was like.
The training in Russia was absolutely great and awesome. We had a seven year program which trained you from basic perspective to multi-figurative compositions. In the first year of the program we had to draw a cube on a surface with drapery to understand the perspective. After that we moved to sphere and cone and had to do it several times. In addition to that we had to paint still lifes in watercolor with pitchers and fruit, or cast iron skillets to understand different patterns, or something transparent filled with water. The reason we could only paint watercolor for the first three years is because this media teaches you precision. A mistake in watercolor is hard to fix, so eventually you have to learn to be precise in your approach to application and drawing. In addition to regularly scheduled classes, we had homework assignments, which included figure sketching, cityscape sketches, and multi-figurative composition sketches for larger projects throughout a year. Every summer we had a “Summer Practice” in a huge garden that our school had, it was not manicured, but was very natural, beautiful, and green. If you were between 6th and 9th grade you were assigned a still life in that garden for about three hours a day and after that we had to go paint cityscapes. If you were between 10th and 12th grades you had to paint a live model in the garden for about the same amount of time and also after that you had to paint cityscapes. At end of the 9th grade we had to pass exams to continue studying at this school, which included still life in oil, drawing of the mask and multi figurative composition. From 10th to 12th grades we had more advanced assignments such as nude model with different color backgrounds and live models with still life’s or some sort of arrangement.
Florence Academy was a great school too. I’ve learned many things from them as well, they are very disciplined and and have their own approach to drawing and painting and I still use certain technical aspects that they taught me. One of the great things about the Florence as a place was that I could go anywhere in Tuscany and paint one of the most beautiful landscapes in the world. So combined with academy training and painting city or landscapes on the weekends, I kind of raised my level, and I think for the first time I saw my paintings starting to look more advanced and professional.

Three weeks ago, the award winners of the 25th Oil Painters of AmericaNational Juried Exhibition were announced. The best of the best had the honor of exhibiting in this important show, and only 10 percent of the 2000 entries juried were selected for the exhibit. Held at Southwest Gallery in Dallas, internationally renowned artist and OPA Master Signature member, Kevin MacPherson, selected the winning works. Many awards were given in a number of categories, but the real excitement was reserved for the top award winners in the Associate and Signature Member Division…top prize being thirty-thousand dollars. So that you can share in the excitement, this blog post will not only share the winning paintings with you but also comments from each of the winning artists. Each were contacted and asked the following question:

Please explain your motivation, what you wanted to communicate, and the creative process behind your winning painting?

“My motivation of the Spade Fish painting was the idea of describing light shining through water and the reflection of the fish at the top of the surface of the water. I wanted to communicate light, the translucent quality of light penetrating through the water. My creative process started when I took literally hundreds of pictures of fish at The Oklahoma Aquarium in my home town. I narrowed it down to this image and omitted other fish to help the composition. I painted this on panel with many, many layers of glazing to help communicate the transparencies of the water and the fish. This was one of my first paintings to experiment with glazing as I had never really used the technique before.”

“My motivation for this painting, as many others, came from travel. I was in a small beach town in Morocco, called Essaouira. Everything there is made by hand: boats of all sizes are even built by hand. Gates, ropes. The town is the least brand-driven place I’ve ever been. I wanted to show the natural beauty of the way those fishermen live. I also have a deep respect for the laborer, anywhere in the world. In this particular image I didn’t want to over-compose formally, because life there is rather unplanned and spontaneous. So I wanted the composition to be very natural feeling in composition. As far as process, I don’t do a lot of underdrawing. I started with the head of one of the walkers, and then built composition around his character. I like to paint accumulating different layers. When I start I place a thin layer of retouch varnish on oil primed canvas, and paint rather spontaneously in layers right away. Sometimes I scrape off. I like the moments when, spending lots of time in nature, you see the most unusual colors. Sometimes my wife and I comment about a landscape or a sky, “If you painted exactly that color, nobody would believe you!”

“I hope that my paintings are more like poems than textbooks and if I can inject a little mysterious magic in them, that’s even better. My painting ideas come in different ways. On this one, I had the title first. I cross the Brazos River at the same spot the historic Chisholm Trail did every time I go to see my mother. I often think about painting ideas as I drive and the distant clouds over the river suggested Thunder on the Brazos. The remaining elements of my painting simply came to me a couple weeks later when I saw the dramatic clouds driving between Dallas and Abilene, Texas last fall. The incredible strength of the clouds and distant rainstorm called for an equally strong image in the foreground. I felt action would be good, so I created the girl moving through space. My young neighbor posed for me; it helps that she takes ballet lessons since I asked her to run and gracefully jump over and over to find a pose that I liked. I intended for her to be the modern girl that she is (with leggings and combat boots) but presented her in a classic/vintage way. The strong silhouette of a solitary figure jumping and running through the landscape intent on important business of her own was what I wanted. But then I didn’t want her to be too alone so I added the herons as companions. We watch them fly over our house on their way to the lake all the time and I have always wanted to use them in a painting. I do not know what she and the herons were doing or where they were going, I just know that they were there. This quote by Georges Braque comes to mind: “There are certain mysteries, certain secrets in my own work, which even I don’t understand, nor do I try to do so.”
The cloudy sky on that Texas day was a deep warm phthalo blue. I added yellow ochre, cadmium yellow, Transparent oxide brown and white. The limited palette gave it a harmonious feeling. I also love the vintage look of some of the filters on my iPhone camera. My color choice was partly influenced by the bluish look of the “process” choice.”

“Whenever I am in a town where draft horses are being used to haul one thing or another ( usually tourists) I am easily pulled along in the wake of the carriages. I follow, I mill around on corners waiting for them to approach and much to the annoyance of the drivers, I stand in the middle of the street in the direct path of the buggies moving aside just before I can look up the nostrils of these equine giants. It’s not that I am in love with the idea of how these horses spend hour after hour engaged in the daily grind of pulling visitors through the same route. If anything, I like to I imagine them in pastures far from pavement and stoplights. Yet, when I see the way the sun drapes across their broad curves and hear the beat of those massive hooves I am simply captivated. The geometry of the harnesses, the shine of the hames, the jingle of the chains, the creak of carriage, the smell and sheen of the leather; all of these elements can be distilled into something that is both complex and palpable. This painting, like all of my work, began with a great deal of focus on the design. The windows and shutters felt like the proper anchor for the multitude of curvilinear shapes that dominated the subject. Often in my work, I am attracted to juxtaposing basic geometric forms with shapes that that are gently curved. Draft horses lend themselves so beautifully to this kind composition. I also tend to enjoy interweaving a sense of movement into something that may feel quite still. This is one of the ideas that I focused upon throughout the painting process_ “What will move in this space -what will remain very quiet and how will these 2 opposites work together?”
And the most important question was, “What is the emotional core of this piece?”
I don’t believe paintings need big stories behind them. I generally think in terms of mood because that is the visceral response that comes from relating to the world. The mood is where the story originates. So for me the emotional core of the painting was to be found by bringing the focus to the eye of the horse. So often, the eyes of these animals are hidden behind blinders. I think, had the eye been covered the tone of the piece would be altered. So the eye, the closed eye, even though it could be obscured by all complexities of the harness seemed very powerful. Tired, beautiful, steadfast and halfway home…that’s what I saw on a late afternoon in Charleston.”
Thanks Derek, Daub, Nancy, and Elizabeth for your beautiful paintings and your contribution to the world of art. Congratulations to each of you.

I don’t think as artists that we give much thought to all the studies that have been done on the subject of “Creativity”…we just create. The people who supposedly study these things usually speak of creativity’s five steps.

The five steps of creativity

1 – Preparation:
All the years of immersion in art provides a foundation, a body of knowledge, that is accessed when beginning to create. This stage may also include additional research.
2 – Incubation:
Ideas, possibilities, and concepts are mulled over, analyzed, and evaluated.
3 – Illumination:
An idea, an acceptable concept forms and begins to jell. Some call it the ah-ha moment.
4 – Evaluation:
Critical analysis of the ah-ha moment…the solidified concept. Are there any possible problems? How can they be resolved?
5 – Implementation:
What’s an idea worth if not implemented. Implementation is the hard work, the 99% perspiration as Einstein once said. This is the place of frustration, self-doubt and discouragement. It’s also the place where persistence is rewarded with a great sense of accomplishment and satisfaction.
For the painting shown below, I can certainly see the application of all five steps. For me, and I imagine for many artists, the steps are not often separate and distinct; there is a lot of back-and-forth overlapping of them.
Some artists have said they always have a very clear vision of where they’re going with a painting before they even begin. That has never worked for me. My paintings tend to be ever evolving, right up to the end. For this painting, “The Calm Descends”, the photo reference was first evaluated, which is nice it itself, but then the question was asked, “What can be done to help communicate more clearly how this scene makes me feel?” Many of the answers to that question were either subconscious or instinctive. Words that come to mind concerning the photo are: calm, peaceful, quiet, safe, agricultural, down to earth working folks, farming, family, community, and changing seasons. With these feelings, I went searching for an appropriate “sky” from my picture files… one that felt right. In landscape painting, the sky determines everything in the painting.
With photo reference in hand and using the basic composition of the photo above, work began on the study shown below. Significant changes were made to the house and barn, creating the feeling of a small family farm in a somewhat more intimate setting. Changing the mood, time of day, structures, and coloration of the photo required a coordinated application of imagination with the concept that had started to jell in the Illumination Stage. Here, I just wanted to see how everything would work together.
It’s one thing to do small studies in order to work out ideas, it’s another ball game entirely when working that study up into a much larger work, as seen in the final painting below.

Comparing the final work with the study, it’s easy to understand what I spoke of earlier…the continual back-and-forth overlapping of the five creative steps. Significant changes were made to all the structures, all created from imagination. A small garage was added to the right of the farm house. The father is backing out the car as his daughter waits eagerly before they set off to the store. Mom is sweeping the porch as her son rides his bike on the driveway. Horses in the corral watch with interest as two small dogs make their way across the quiet county road as the day draws to a close. The overall coloration of the scene was warmed and considerable time was given to achieving a variety of textures within the grasses and distant fields.
With these additions and changes, the small farm has become very livable, inviting, calm and peaceful, a place of safety and joy for this young family. These are all qualities that are often found in my paintings…paintings with a subtle narrative…created with a concept in mind, yet brought to life through the imagination and a lot of hard work.
Pototschnik’s work and weekly blog may be accessed at www.pototschnik.com