New and Old

So this year has been a sort of watershed year for me in terms of my exploration of new media. I have long wanted to explore a new style of painting (for me) which is actually a very old style of painting. For a number of years (a number I cannot name - but that’s me with numbers) I've wanted to try my hand at egg tempera, a style of painting that has a relatively small number of practitioners in our time. Most anyone with any knowledge of art will recognize the name Andrew Wyeth, the late American master of surprise, surprise, egg tempera. There are a number of other American greats using this medium and a sort of recent resurgence in it, but for most artists it seems a tedious and illusive art form. For me it was something I felt I could do, but in the rush to live life, get child through college, stay employed, etc, etc, it was always sort of just out of my reach. But I was getting older every day, and this seemed such a simple transition in style for me. Egg tempera uses lots of tiny little lines to create the subtle changes in color and to add depth to the images. Tiny brushes, tiny lines, sounded right up my alley. I actually began my artistic journey as a user of crow quill #102 pen points and india ink, and my first job out of college was as a photo retoucher using Kolinsky Rotmarder watercolor brushes in an industry more akin to the old European guild style of craftwork and since it was a blended German-American company that makes a lot of sense. A minimum of 8 hours a day (but generally far more hours a day and week) I had a #9 Kolinsky Rotmarder watercolor brush drawing god only knows what as I was trained in a 4-year apprenticeship to understand the intricacies of photography, printing and color. The constant use of the brush increased the skill level of the artist/retoucher, the rest was a constant repetition of practice that taught color knowledge to a level most people never approach. For years after I left there I painted watercolor paintings using red, yellow, blue and black with no other colors simply because I could. I had lots of other colors, but why bother? I understood colors and knew what I could create with just those four. It was fun, but no one cared. Most people would miss the dubious value of having that ability and rightly so. I also used to go to life drawing classes and draw using red yellow and blue watercolor pencils and try to get that same effect of full color using less, rather than more. But I knew about egg tempera and it was always there, just out of my reach.
In 2008 a giant of Lynchburg art, Frank Wright, passed away and in a bit of ironic whimsy, his son called me and asked if I'd like some of his leftover supplies. As I was now a public high school art teacher, I assumed some of these supplies would be valuable in the classroom,  a setting almost always underfunded in public schools. I said certainly and drove over to the master's home in my Jeep Liberty which I proceeded to load and load until I wondered if I'd be able to drive away. I drove directly to my school-it was a Sunday afternoon and unloaded everything I thought I could use in the classroom. The rest I took home and into my basement where it waited. Over the years since, I have used many very expensive sheets of watercolor paper, a couple of large canvases and various other pieces of the remainders of his studio. The art students at my school have used loads of stuff he donated and many opportunities for creating art by very worthy students were experienced directly because of this gift. 
But in my basement was one box that I'd forgotten about, just waiting for me to take a peek. In this time span, I've had a heart attack in class, coached girl’s soccer, my students have illustrated and published three children books and I've rediscovered acrylics and sculptural forms and still that box rested with other art supplies, waiting for my discovery. I was still thinking about egg tempera. My life wasn't getting longer and if I wanted to do it, I just had to, well, do it. I e-mailed various egg tempera artists inquiring about workshops, asking questions and the answer almost invariably was "...what are you waiting for, just do it..." or something along those lines. I could always find a reason not to do it; ‘ “daughter in college, can't afford the pigments” or “...no raises for teachers again and now our insurance rates have soared and daughter is in college, so can't afford the pigments right now...” ’ or something along those lines. I talked to my students about it, they were sort of lukewarm, but willing. I suppose they wanted to know the teacher understood the medium before they invested time in it (an acceptable feeling I'd admit) and their teacher had never tried it! One of my teachers had told me the “...best way to learn something is to teach it...” a statement I found ridiculous at the time. Turns out it’s actually not far off.
So back to the box in the basement. I had decided to write a grant when the new 2014-15 school year  opened and try to teach egg tempera and I proceeded to do exactly that. I asked our local Education Foundation for $800 in order to purchase supplies and a small refrigerator (to keep the egg medium fresh). To my shock, they agreed and we were off and running. So one day I was in the basement and moving some boxes around I came across this box I brought home from Mr. Wright’s studio maybe five years before. On a whim I popped the lid and there before my eyes were several dozen bottles of “Perma-Color” dry pigments from a pigment manufacturer in Charlotte, NC and I later discovered had also supplied Andrew Wyeth with some of his pigments. Wow!
I cannot describe how much this surprised and stunned me. Some of these pigments might have gone for a couple of dollars a bottle, others maybe a good bit more. Now that I have bought some pigments, I can say, a whole lot more. Nowadays one of these bottles starts at around $20 and quickly climbs to a place I can't even dream of. So I had no excuse now. Time to paint.
The summer before I had entered a watercolor painting into a regional show at The Hill Center on Capitol Hill in Washington DC. My sister in law Iris Goodman of DC had told me about the Hill Center and asked me to enter. To my surprise it was accepted. The show was juried by the Art Critic for the Washington Post so I was surprised to be accepted at all. This was a different level of art show for me. My wife and I went to DC for the show and after getting off the train went down to the National Gallery to kill a little time before the opening. While there we went to see a newly acquired Van Gogh and I wanted to look at some Toulouse-Lautrecs for something my students had been asked to do the next fall for Lynchburg's Opera on the James. I happened to turn and saw my wife in front of the new Van Gogh, her figure showing a question as she looked at the newly acquired painting. I shot off several photos, wondering if a guard would ask for my camera but no one seemed to notice and we proceeded to wander until her brother picked us up outside the museum. All evening at the opening I was struck by the image I had photographed. It's like a subtle buzz in the head you keep hearing, pulling you back to that moment and over the rest of the summer I thought about it and wondered whether to paint it.
Fall arrived and in class we began working on Opera panels (4' x 6' panels illustrating in the style of Toulouse-Lautrec all 20 operas done in the history of Opera on the James). Winter break arrived and I had begun talking to various students about whether they'd like to try egg tempera. In the end about 24 participated with 20-21 finishing at least one painting. But it was now winter break and I hadn't begun one yet. I went back to the photos of the National Gallery visit and the buzz was still in my head. I decided to begin a 16" x 20" painting of a museum patron looking at this newly acquired Van Gogh. First step, a drawing on claboard a sort of pre-gessoed masonite. Then I pen and inked the drawing. I couldn't open the door to silverpoint (money) and had been told pen and ink would substitute nicely and it did. The students watched and began inking their own 9" x 12" boards. So we proceeded together, seeing what happened and learning as we went. The next Hill Center deadline for entry was coming up and I had decided to enter an egg tempera. At the same time an Academy fund-raiser was fast approaching and I had told Ted Batt I'd donate a painting. So in mid January I stopped the larger first egg tempera and began a 9" x 12" painting of a lily against a red barn. I knocked this one out and posted it and a friend piped up with "I want it." So now I had a quandary, a sale, or a donation. I started another painting to donate to the Academy. By the end of January I was approaching the mid-point of the large painting, had finished one other and was about to finish a third with a fourth and fifth on my find. (One of my students was finishing her first and talking about her second. She is on number four at this point in October.) I was liking this medium.
The entry was due in April with an answer to acceptance in May and delivery to the Hill Center in June. I finished the large painting I was now calling “The New Van Gogh” in early March, photographed it along with a couple of fairly recent watercolors (a year old at least) and paid my entry fee and entered through something called "entrythingy". In early May I receive an e-mail from the gallery saying I'd had one of three accepted:

Dear Jon,
Congratulations!  We are very pleased to announce that your work has been selected for the Hill Center Galleries 2015 Regional Juried Exhibition that will run from June 25 through September 29.  (Note change from the announced end date of September 27.) 
Our juror, Mark Leithauser, Senior Curator and Chief of Design for the National Gallery of Art, selected a distinctive group of pieces from a very large field of entries -- 500 pieces from over 100 artists.  His evaluation was made on individual images, not the complete body of work entered. If you submitted more than one piece for consideration, please note this message advises you only of the individual image(s) SELECTED, by title and entry number, as follows: 2110.172273.730148 The New Van Gogh .  If you submitted additional work for consideration, you will receive a second message listing the piece(s) NOT selected.
You will receive instructions from us soon about the exhibition schedule, requirements for preparing your work to be hung in our galleries, etc.
Be sure to mark your calendar for Thursday, June 25, 6-8pm, for the Opening Reception.  Prize winners (1st, 2nd, and 3rd prize and five Honorable Mention) will be announced during the reception.

Wow, cool. I got in. We had a college graduation to attend in early May as our daughter completed her four years at Radford University and the costs of moving her back home and had about decided we weren't going to attend the opening this year. School ended with all the stress that entails and we slowly moved into our summer routine. My wife went off to a conference for several days and I debated whether or not to go to the show since she’d be coming home and heading right out if she was going to go also. I think I had even said to her I wasn't going to go when on Tuesday, the week of the Thursday opening, this e-mail arrived:

On behalf of Nicky Cymrot, Director of Hill Center Galleries, and Mark Leithauser, Juror for the 2015 Regional Exhibition, I am pleased to announce the following selections made today.

First Prize: Jon Roark, The New Van Gogh
Second Prize: M. Alexander Gray, Old Logging Railroad
Third Prize: Corinne Whitlach, Tunisia's Memoir
Honorable Mention:
- Joseph Bellofatto, Lady of the Lake
- Nancy Freeman, The Third Middle Journey
- Thom Goertel, Chevy, Yellville, Arkansas
- Hester Ohbi, Fleeting
- Judy Searles, Recoleta Detail

Cash awards and certificates will be presented during Mr. Leithauser's remarks at the Opening Reception, Thursday, June 25.  Please join us in the Lincoln Room on the 2nd floor of Hill Center by 7:10 pm.  (Please let me know if you unable to attend.)

Congratulations once again.

Barbara Bonessa for Hill Center Galleries

Well, the situation had changed, hadn't it? First Prize? I called my wife and said, “I think you want to go with me to this show.” We had the normal discussion of being too tired, the dog needing his schedule back to normal, etc, and then I read her the e-mail. It was a pretty astonishing thing for me. I’ve been in a lot of shows and won awards, but never on this level. Then I noticed the juror's name. Washington Post critic the year before, this year it was the Senior Curator of the National Gallery. This was not air I had breathed before.

So now we are almost a year later, my painting is gone, not only did it win but it sold and i am busy teaching again and trying to find time to paint. I just this week began my 8th egg tempera and while I am still finding my way, I am finding the path to be smooth and friendly and very, very fulfilling. Not that anyone is reading this...