<![CDATA[Lee Baker DeVore - blog news]]>Thu, 27 Oct 2022 20:33:27 -0400Weebly<![CDATA[En Route: Painting through a Pandemic]]>Wed, 22 Sep 2021 13:15:27 GMThttp://leebakerdevore.com/blog/en-route-painting-through-a-pandemicAfter 19 months of painting regularly on these study sized 9 x 12 panels, I finally hung them for the public. The exhibit of 44 small acrylic paintings opened at Oxford Community Art Center on September 10, 2021. It was a quieter night than I'd expected, but I still had several good conversations and a fair handful of complements.

I had one friend go with me a separate time, and ask me how I felt about them. And I realized, as is often the case with artists, I was less than satisfied. Mainly, because I ended up working much more tightly than I'd like. The small size didn't lend itself to rough gestural style, just ended up looking unfinished, so I'd invariably resort to refining the painting. 

But tight realism is never my goal. I want to give impressions. Gestures. Lines & marks that sparkle and dance and inspire imagination. I don't know how well I succeeded in that. And it made me realize I'd much rather be drawing with a stick and fingers than painting with a brush.  But my original goal was to get better at painting, and I think I did, from a technical standpoint.

Seeing them all in their chronology, with brief descriptions, is interesting. Not everyone caught on, or viewed them in order, but many did, and stopped to read the signage at the beginning:

 “EN ROUTE: PAINTING THROUGH A PANDEMIC”: ABOUT The EXHIBIT
HOW IT STARTED: New Year 2020: I ordered 50 9x12 panels and some 6x6 little canvases with an intent and self-challenge: to improve my painting skills and sense of style with ‘a paint study a week’for a year. Maybe experiment with styles of Impressionists, Post Impressionists, German expressionists. See what happens. And in late February I began.

THEN COVID19 ARRIVED. Life changed. And these paintings shifted from an academic exercise to both a visual diary, colored by the isolation, anxiety, and adaptation of this time, and therapy, a focus, something to do that brought grounding.

THE RESULTS have not been one every week, but a sequence nonetheless. They wind through a year and a half, recording the seasons’ impressions, experiences, thoughts and moods. Some reflect on memories of other times, other places. Predominantly, though, they focus on my home environment inside and out during isolation.

THE SIZE rather hampered my normal gestural approach, but has still been a growing experience. These are no great masterpieces. They are just small works, but with a surprisingly big positive effect on my mental and emotional health. As I shared them on line over the months, it became evident that they affected others this way as well.  

WE NEED ART, especially during strange and stressful times. Art awakens us. Deepens us. Encourages us. Carries us forward together. I hope you find it to be so, here among these humble offerings.
-----------------Lee Baker DeVore"

All the paintings and their descriptions/titles are listed in the previous 4 blogs, so rather than repeat all that, I'd encourage you to visit those posts.  I hope you will. (To view chronologically, start with the July 28 2020 post first.)

]]><![CDATA[Weekly Painting Challenge concludes-Summer 2021]]>Sun, 29 Aug 2021 18:29:52 GMThttp://leebakerdevore.com/blog/weekly-painting-challenge-concludes-summer-2021This post brings the challenge to a conclusion with 44 small paintings, culminating in an exhibit locally at Oxford Community Arts Center September 10-October 2. Although I still technically have 6 panels left of the 50, I've run out of time.

From end of spring through end of July, things were looking up, pandemic-wise. People started getting out. Mask mandates were lifted. Many of us were vaccinated.

There was a 17 year cicada emergence from late May through early July to contend with, marvel at, endure the bumbly noisy hoards, and eventually clean up the broken young branches from egg laying slashes.  There was a lovely escape at end of June to Beaver Island, Michigan for a week, on the quiet timeless western shore.  Gardens at home flourished. Baby hawks grew, fledged, and launched into the world. Storms rose. But spirits were high...

Until the Delta variant arrived. Clearly, this isn't over. Fall and winter loom. Now we are looking at booster shots to ward off breakthrough infections, schools opening up only to possibly shut back down, and many folks in a state of belligerent denial. 

In the midst of all this, I still paint, process, ruminate. We are still in this together. But in these strange and stressful times, we need art. Art awakens us. Deepens us. Encourages us. Carries us forward together. I hope you find it so in all these humble offerings.
]]><![CDATA[Weekly Paintings continued]]>Thu, 13 May 2021 14:15:41 GMThttp://leebakerdevore.com/blog/weekly-paintings-continuedSPRING: always a season symbolizing hope and rebirth, the arrival of Covid19 vaccines brought new hope in a concrete way, along with the waning of winter and long months of isolation. While for a retired introvert, secure in my home and yard, isolation was less traumatic than for some, I still have noticed the quiet toll on my mental and emotional state.  Looking forward to actually seeing some people and getting out and going places is uplifting.

Painting has been a real boon during the long months of the pandemic; the 'Weekly Painting' challenge gives me something to anchor my days and attention with, to pull me away from fear and the abnormal state of things. That, and my unaffected cat have kept me steady and sane. Themes continued to be largely my local stay-at-home-environment (and again, not exactly EVERY week, but close.)

March saw a final melting of the impressive snows of February, and the slow awakening of the earth. But April, not to be outdone by the abnormality of the pandemic, decided to be unusual as well, with 2 snowfalls: one as an April Fools morning prank, the other later in the month with 2" of snow bending the new growth but miraculously not harming any new leaves or blooms.

This update includes not only the weekly painting challenge results, but also one large commission piece, that somewhat displaced the rhythm of weekly paintings, as well as a smaller landscape created for an upcoming local group exhibition.  Also, in an attempt to recapture some of the more spontaneous gestures of my stick & ink drawings, several of these include 'painting with sticks' (drawing with a bamboo stick and thinned dark paint) and as part of the under-painting. (#33 and #37)
]]><![CDATA[Weekly 9x12 paintings continued]]>Sun, 28 Feb 2021 05:00:00 GMThttp://leebakerdevore.com/blog/weekly-9x12-paintings-continuedContinuing the weekly painting challenge from November 2020 through the first half of February, here are the next batch of paintings. The winter has been a dark, isolating, and thoughtful time. Painting has been a way of processing, especially over the cusp of Winter Solstice and the 'darkest hour', which in truth stretches its ethos through several months. Tucker pops up again, as he is my one constant company. Nearly all are views from inside my quiet haven looking in and around or out at my yard views.

'Welcoming committee' are 2 cast iron mice given me by my brother years ago, on a bookcase facing my front door. I gave them 'food and drink' to carry, to welcome all who enter.   'The darkest hour' is my view looking out the south window with daily cup of early morning tea and musings.  ('Wolf Moon" (January's full moon) is based on a picture taken by a friend, with her blessing.)

3 snow paintings are a nod to the storms that roared through end of January and through February after a rather moderate, snowless winter. The third is also an homage to my mother, who was a ceramic sculptor. This is of her first winter in northern Minnesota, a rare warmish wet snow, in 1980, prompted her to create. I credit her with so much of my artistic encouragement from early childhood on.
]]><![CDATA[2020 Weekly Paintings continued]]>Mon, 23 Nov 2020 05:00:00 GMThttp://leebakerdevore.com/blog/2020-weekly-paintings-continued  I have not painted every week, but I have painted. Adding to the 9x12 paint studies: The first is a memory of Maine's coast, but the rest are life in isolation staying safe from the virus. Fibonacci cat was a fun response to a conversation with a friend about the patterns in nature. The path was painted as a memory of a walk in September nearby. 'In like a fog' is part of a pair, the second not yet complete. (October comes in like a fog and goes out like a bell. Just finishing 'out like a bell')  'Morning rain dissolves October' is my attempt to paint a long elusive impression of what rain does. You may notice my mug becoming a bit of an 'Avatar', and I expect it to show up in future paintings as well. (As does my cat, Tucker.)  The last, October 31st's 'Blue Moon' borrows heavily from Van Gogh's vision of the night sky. I wanted to somehow convey the magic of that moonlit night.
]]><![CDATA[Weekly Painting Challenge 2020]]>Tue, 28 Jul 2020 04:00:00 GMThttp://leebakerdevore.com/blog/weekly-painting-challenge-2020At the beginning of January 2020, I decided to invest in 50 9x12 panels and challenge myself to do a painting a week, Though other projects delayed my start until near end of February. No great works, but a way to improve my painting and explore it more, since I'd been focused in the past on black & white works and collages. I found almost at once that the small format changed the way I work, and I am not really a fan of working so tightly. But I plug away at it. Here are the first 9. I took a long break to do a landscape project when the weather warmed up enough and stopped raining in spring.

Then the Covid 19 crisis hit. That began to effect the paintings. They have become a kind of chronicle of the year.

Some of them are particular exercises: #1 was done with a limited palette of leftover paint from a previous work: all hues were created with 3 colors (raw umber, pthalo blue, purple) and white. #2 was an exercise in painting the negative space, and was created by painting the plant shapes loosely in washes, then the negative space (pale yellow) around them. Harder that way, but interesting exercise. #5 was painted again with limited palette and just a palette knife, no brushes. #6 was born of contemplating the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, in which my great aunt Helen died. This is from a black & white picture I have of her hanging in my hall. Hard to describe the emotion this evoked in me.

Obviously there are more to come, and I skipped some weeks, but this covered the first 6 months of a very stressful and strange year.
]]><![CDATA[Spring 2020 Covid 19 and "stress landscaping"]]>Sun, 26 Jul 2020 04:00:00 GMThttp://leebakerdevore.com/blog/spring-2020-covid-19-and-stress-landscapingSo I've had a design in my files since I first created the prairie garden of installing a 'dry stream bed' garden feature. After the shop was built and my broken concrete patio was replaced with a curving one, the shapes emerged more clearly and I thought the lockdown was a good time to start digging.

Nothing like digging ditches to relieve stress. Granted, with bum shoulders and age, it took me a lot longer than it would have my son, but he was on lockdown too. I worked away for weeks a few hours at a time, lining the beds with weed barrier as I went. Finally it was gravel time. That was a more focused labor to get it done before my lawn mower guys had to get past the pile in front of the gate!

The final stage was planting and edge treatments. I worked with what I had: I couldn't install large boulders so this is a 'gentle stream'.
]]><![CDATA[Nod to Nate DeVore's stone sculpture art]]>Sun, 21 Jun 2020 16:18:11 GMThttp://leebakerdevore.com/blog/nod-to-nate-devores-stone-sculpture-artMy son, Nate DeVore, is an artist as well. Mostly he expresses this in sculpture. This post is about his stone sculpture and construction pieces to date, since his website expired. These pieces range from stacked stone and mortared installations to large stone sculpture pieces. I wish I had better pictures of some of these. 
]]><![CDATA[May 17th, 2019]]>Fri, 17 May 2019 18:03:31 GMThttp://leebakerdevore.com/blog/may-17th-2019LAST YEAR I embarked on first arts & crafts fairs I've attempted for 20+ years. June and September (Apple Butter Festival) events were at the Doty Homestead of Hueston Woods, Oxford Ohio. Moderately successful, under the banner of 'The Elfin Peddler.' The June fair included artwork, of which only one sold. I decided to omit them from the September Fair. December 1st weekend, my first participation in the Holiday events in Oxford, with craft fair inside Oxford Community Arts Center, was a single day and a surprising success. I had a primo spot right inside the ballroom doors. Thankful for that.

Also must thank my daughter Atalie DeVore, whose stalwart presence at each event made it easier and more fun, and my friend Virgil Seger for his kind muscles and time donated to help with set up and hauling in June and December.
]]><![CDATA[Transformations -landscape]]>Fri, 17 May 2019 04:00:00 GMThttp://leebakerdevore.com/blog/transformations-landscapeLONG OVERDUE: the transformations of my new home. Landscape: from blank slate to increasing refuge. Apart from help planting the big trees and rocks, I did all the rest myself, in stages.

1. The back: building a prairie garden
2. The front: buffer from the street.
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