Flying High, acrylic on canvas
ADRIENNE KAPLAN: The Pursuit of Happiness, continued
Adrienne Kaplan’s show opens October 21, 2014, with a colorful field trip for your eyes! As I walked in to the gallery tonight to do the lighting, I just stopped in my tracks and looked at her work in awe. There’s something so immediate about the way Adrienne captures a moment. Her application of the paint makes it seem like she just can’t record the scene fast enough – that if she/her brush blinks, the moment will be lost.
Standing back from the work, the scenes come to life while I’m looking, but up close, the brush strokes describe something more abstract – something intangible, a memory, the way the light fell on a woman’s shoulder, the weight of a shadow.
Angle of Repose, acrylic on canvas
I had the opportunity to interview her recently:
VM: How long have you painted?
1: AGK: Forever!
VM: What is it that first interested you in art?
AGK: I was always Paint Monitor in Grade School. Best was mixing the calcimine powder pigments, and then dipping my brush in and sloshing the paint onto the newsprint paper.
VM: What are some of the lessons you’ve learned in a lifetime of making art that you think could only have been learned making art?
AGK: Looking, seeing, listening, hearing, moving, and telling stories.
VM: What is it about painting that pulled you to that medium, rather than, say, stone carving or silversmithing?
AGK: I like to do it all with the exception of silversmithing. Also see answer #1.
VM: You’ve also been interested in text and worked as a graphic designer for many years – do you feel that has had any influence on you as a painter, or vice versa?
AGK: Yes and yes.
Boathouse Later in the Day, acrylic on canvas
VM: I heard you speak recently, very eloquently, about your work and the title “The Pursuit of Happiness, continued” and the connection to the greater meaning of life. Could you re-cap that a bit for this interview?
AGK: Two Years ago I made a series of large paintings inspired by thinking about these last four words of the Declaration of Independence, “the Pursuit of Happiness.”
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
In the late spring of this year as the weather accommodated I started walking the path that circumnavigates the Huron River at Gallup Park, enjoying this great park with others. I decided to come to paint. After several sittings I recognized this as another location of “The Pursuit of Happiness,” It may sound corny but here again, I had come upon a small piece of humanity at peaceful leisure. Then I remembered all sorts of historical connections: Georges Seurat’s, Sunday on La Grande Jatte, Stephan Sondheim’s musical theater production Sunday in the Park with Georges, based on that painting. The history of pastoral painting; Giorgione, Watteau, Manet, Luncheon on the Grass. And from my history, the mid 20th Century comedian, Stan Freberg’s schtick about The Purfuit of Happiness. I painted on sight and took oodles of iPhotos. Later I selected the references I wanted to work from and made the three large paintings.
In Memory of George, acrylic on canvas
Late August we visited Old Orchard Beach, Maine, and the outstanding Artist and Craftsman’s art supply in Portland. There my husband, Harold, spotted packages of 10, 8” X 10” size canvases, asked what did I think, Yes, perfect I will make a series of “post card” paintings of the pleasures found sir la plage, more Pursuit of Happiness. Later, back home in Ann Arbor, the final batch, 10 more, 8 X 10 “postcards” from the early summer park work.
Smile at Me, acrylic on canvas
This is a terrible period of global events, even so I don’t think it is hopeless to show conversation, peace, tranquility, and joy. Diverse is a word of the moment used to mean mixes of race, nationality, culture, religion. This utopia of diversity was comfortably apparent in the out of doors I visited. It is what I saw at the urban and riverside parks and at the beach, and have tried to tell. It does exist. Small pieces of pleasure do exist.
We The People enjoying company, or solitude in the out of doors.
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My Method
Slap on underpainting bring to understandable imagery using lots of acrylic pigments and medium. Conclude with a friendly mix of painting and drawing.
Concentration, acrylic on canvas