Still kicking…

…and not yet the bucket…

I was lucky. I’ve found at an art supply store a Windsor and Newton easel, a solid one, a real easel for serious artists (one can paint a 2 x 3 m canvases, if so enclined…) at half price. Somehow, I managed to borrow the necessary $ from a friend and bought it.

Somehow, it was like a “sign”. And the blockage which, until I had that easel, mysteriously prevent me to paint, disappeared… At least, to me, having the easel seemed to be the moment when my creativity came again to life. Curious and mysterious ways our mind has…

Since then, about 1 month ago, I’ve painted 5 canvases of 16 x 20 inches and some nude drawings too. Here there are, in an approximative chronological order;

Laboured Fields Under Moon Light

I started with this re-interpretation of an older landscape I made a few years ago probably because that one was the first painting I’ve sold for a decent sum (750$). It was a full of hope period and a good painting then. This one is probably ok.

The Night in May When it Snowed 

This one was inspired by the photo of a tomato flower and by a unusual intense snowfall.

Lake and Clouds Reflexions

With this landscape (inspired by a B&W photo) I’ve tried to remember the happy times I had  at the Village Museum in the Dumbrava forest, near Sibiu, my native town.

Errant Greek-Orthodox Monk

Also a rememberance: I’ve met this monk, one that they called sometimes, Crazy After Jesus monk, because of their simili-franciscan faith and demenor (begging for their monastery and only then for themselves, a leaf of bread…) in a proud Transylvanian village near Sibiu, called Saliste. I took a photo of him in the church and was impressed by his sincerity and humbleness.

North of Quebec “Taiga”

Some years back I’ve travelled 1750 km to go fishing, with a compatriote, Stephan and a quebequer friend, Clément. So, it’s also a remeberance of beauty and wilderness (I didn’t catch a fish but did some nice watercolors and took lots of pictures…), painted after a B&W photo (again! I like to do that because it gives me more color freedom…). I’m not unsatisfied with it. It ressembles the XIX century Russian realist paintings. No wonder since the Quebec Taiga is very similar to the Siberian Taiga. Minus the tigers, fortunatelly…

In conclusion, still kicking and happy to paint and draw, a bit. As long as I can do this, no matter what, things will be ok.

 

 

 

The monkish temptation

I wouldn’t say I’m a frequent visitor of monasteries and other religious establishments… I’m always a bit rebuked by the organized (too damn organized!) religions but I’m not totally immune to the spiritual temptation, to the spiritual search… Some aspects of Ortodoxism and Catholicism and many of Buddhism aspects are appealing to me…

And I have to confess: I love monasteries! I love their silence, their isolation (I like especially those situated in the woods and mountains or at the seaside…) their austerity, their apparent simplicity… Some of my finest memories are connected to monasteries…

I have visited most of my native country’s monasteries… in Transylvania, Moldavia, Muntenia and Dobrodja… Quite often, after my 40-eth anniversary, I was even tempted to take the vow… As I’ve already said, I love the silence, the isolation, the nature and the exilarating searching for a God IN nature…

But then, I’m a sinner too… I love too much to paint – nudes for that matter – I love too much the women and the horses curves (strictly with my eyes; the rest is reserved for the gray-blue-eyed woman of my life)…

I don’t dislike a gurmet meal or a glass of good wine or a small amount of Glennfidich single malt (I buy a bottle every 5 years or so…heavy drinker, eh?) More than that, I’m usually savagely independent and don’t care much for authority (ANY authority)…

Finally, I’m a one-man-monastery, with a twist (very much like Allan Watts, the zen-man) and if I would like, for a while, to meditate in a monastery or two (orthodox, catholic or Buddhist, doesn’t matter) I’m too jelous of my liberty to simply be a monk…

So, I’ve replaced the my monkish temptations with painting monastery landscapes (I did some with Cilik-Dere, for instance). The following is a landscape from Greece I’m kind of proud of (and the original painting is even better)…

I hope you’ll like it too…

Copyright 2008 @ Dan Iordache, for the text and photo reproduction

A crazy monk…

The monk in this fragment of painting – a triptic I did as my final project when I was studying at the University of Sherbrooke, to obtain my Certificat en arts visuels – is the portrait of a wandering monk from my native country, Romania… A monk who was a bit “mentally handicaped” (in the politically correct formula, so full of shaite! ) (That was a presumably Scotish pronounciation for a very well known “s” word) A monk who earn the little food or clothes he needed by decently begging for it or doing small easy odd jobs. People respected him as almost a  saint for how many of us would have had the courage to rely on our fellow humans generosity to live? He slept probably in a small “schit” (a very small monastery) and came every Sunday for the religious service at the Saliste church around which he gravitated… I took a photo of him there, in the 90 ties and used that photo to make this portrait…

For me, he was a hero, a true believer. A bit like the buddhist wandering monks… An acceptance of the world as it is. A confidence that He Who Is In Heaven will take care of him also (as He does for the little sparrows…) A humility full of dignity, something which was true and real. Not the humility of the Tartuffe-like television preachers… I even felt that maybe, someday, when I will muster the courage, I could have his attitude: accept everything, ask for very little, believe in something greater than myself… Maybe some of the old masters, like Pieter Bruegel or Rembrandt, had that, in the painting field, at the end of their lives…