A JOURNAL: Archives for March 2007

A JOURNAL

THIS BLOG IS AN ONLINE JOURNAL OF MY EXPERIENCES PAST AND PRESENT IN THE FORM OF WORDS, MUSIC, PHOTOS AND ART

March 16, 2007

The Joy of Painting

Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, March 16, 2007

The most famous person ever to have been born in St. Thomas was the great French painter Camille Pissaro. His parents were French, so naturally he gravitated towards France, made his name there, and died there as well. Pissaro is still spoken with great reverence among the art cognoscenti here in this island, but is little noted by the great mass of tourists who descend here from planes and cruise ships. His works are not in the canon of high-class reproductions that pass for art in cruise ships’ galleries. Somehow, St. Thomas didn’t seem to have as much influence on Pissaro’s art as Tahiti, or even Martinique, had on Gauguin’s. Pissaro remains a precursory figure in the impressionist art movement who was firmly rooted in the academic tradition. That he happened to have been born and lived his early years in St. Thomas seemed of no consequence to his later development as a painter.

An Early Pissarro Pissarro as Impressionist

There is an art store in the Havensight section of St. Thomas that I visit whenever I can. The shop’s name is the The Draughtsman. It deals in stationery, office supplies, and most important for the artists on this island, art supplies. It was from this store that I first bought my high quality brushes, paints and canvases to embark seriously on the hobby of painting. Painting is merely a hobby for me, because I have never been able to realize any significant income from it. But it was a visit to some art galleries in Alaska and Vancouver that had me motivated to get serious in my painting. You see, I was outraged by the high prices of the paintings I saw, paintings whose prices were beyond the reach of my pocketbook. Looking at some of the paintings, I thought to myself, “ I can do this.” Today my house is decorated with my paintings and my art collection. I had two art exhibits for crew on two ships, and sold a few paintings. I was commissioned to paint a portrait and have done a mural for one of the P&O ships (albeit it was on a crew hallway!) The first artwork I ever sold was a small watercolor of a foggy scene in Alaska. I thought nothing of it, but I remember an assistant cruise director, Linda, offering to pay $25 for it, which I readily accepted. One of my Alaska landscapes is in the possession of a female British dancer. Another dancer named Peter bought a large abstract painting. Chris Nichols, who was then a singer, bought another, an atmospheric pastel of a Caribbean sunset . Lisa Gold, the female lead singer at the time, was fascinated by a small watercolor study I did for a larger painting of “Orpheus” and readily bought it. A magician commissioned me to paint a life-size portrait of a girl, which he could use for a magic act. When I finished the painting, he paid me $300, a princely sum for me. All in all, I figured I sold more artwork than Van Gogh ever did in his lifetime (he only sold one). That doesn’t mean much of course, when you consider how much a Van Gogh costs nowadays. But think how Van Gogh would have felt if he sold more than one painting in his days. He might not have committed suicide, and painted more pictures. To learn that somebody is willing to pay money to possess one of your paintings is surely one of the most affirming, gratifying and validating experiences a hobbyist-painter can ever have. I can understand why Van Gogh would kill himself. There is nothing more deflating than to pour your heart and soul into a painting, only to learn that nobody wants it. Fortunately I do not depend on painting for my livelihood. I delved into the Internet and was amazed...and disheartened at the number of brilliant artists in existence throughout the world. What did I have to say that they couldn’t say in a better, more refined way? There was always music, of course, the bread and butter of my existence. It would pay for my brushes and paints and acid-free art paper. And it wasn’t just music-making in general: it had to be music-making on a cruise ship, because the combination of work and travel that being on a ship affords me is the surest condition for me to be able to paint to my heart’s desire.
So far I have done more than a dozen watercolors that I plan to exhibit on the Crown Princess. I'll post them on this blog soon. These watercolors were inspired by my current visit to the Caribbean islands.

Posted by manniep at March 16, 2007 8:41:46am
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