What makes us feel alive?

I often try and think about what makes someone connect with a work of art. What is it that stops us in our tracks and makes us reconsider, even in a small way, how we see the world or feel about it? Sometimes this happens when we see a work of art, read a great story or just come across anything at all that moves us. Often it is not planned or expected. This video of two friends out on a boat ride so perfectly captures that moment. Life can be so rich, so unbelievably surprising that all one can do in the end, like these two girls, is just laugh and be thankful.

Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.

Costello Childs Gallery Opening

Thought I would post some shots of how the work looked in the gallery....It was wonderful to meet many of the designers and art consultants who have purchased my work for their clients as well as some of the local collectors. Scottsdale has a wonderful art community and everyone turns out to see what is happening...Whenever I do a show, work like crazy to make the paintings and then take a week off, show up in a new town and then walk in to the gallery, I always get some kind of insight or fresh realization about my work. This time I saw that the black and white more simple paintings I had made were very strong. I wasn't so sure about it when I originally made them. There is something about making paintings that are very simple, not only compositionally but color wise as well, that increases their potency. Less is often, more. I plan to do more like them in the future.

New Paintings for Solo Show

Here is a photo of my studio towards the end of finishing 12 new large paintings for a show at the Costello Childs Gallery in Scottsdale, AZ. The show opens Oct 19th and runs through Nov 23rd. This body of work represents the biggest creative effort I have given in a long time. I don't think I have ever made so many large paintings at one time. I know the large studio has helped me work better at scale as I can get back from the work and see it in context with all the other paintings. One painting starts to improve and then all the others seem weaker which in turn makes me push the others till they are at the same level. I was expecting to be exhausted once the delivery truck came and took all the paintings away but oddly I am not. I walked back into my now empty studio and just pulled out a bunch of blank panels and started in again. Either I am mad or this art-making thing is addictive. Maybe a little of both.

Artplane Evening Series Begins Sept 6th!

For anyone who is possibly within driving distance of Sausalito, CA. I thought I would post the info for the Artplane Evening Series.
This 6 week course is an abbreviation of the longer 5 and 7 day workshops we hold every year. They have been lots of fun so far.
The photo is of the texture making tools that everyone uses. I painted them all red because when we travel to various art studios to teach we invariably lose a few because they blend in so well....

ARTPLANE EVENING SERIES

Upcoming 6 week series: Tuesdays 6pm-9pm Beginning Sept 6th!

Thanks again to everyone for making the last session so much fun. Please pass this email on to
any of your friends who might enjoy the class. Word of mouth is my only advertising!

Come join the next 6 week series of studio classes taught by Nicholas Wilton in his
studio located in Sausalito, California. This ongoing course will be especially helpful for
those artists who are sometimes challenged by maintaining creative momentum and
achieving goals in alignment with their personal vision or creative path.
Beginning students as well as those who have already completed an Artplane Workshop
will find this weekly touchstone incredibly supportive and inspirational.
Not only will our small group be working together in class but we will also be
clarifying a practical process to develop a cohesive body of personal work.
We will be working on 12" x 12” wood panels using primarily acrylic paint.
For more advanced students alternative materials and sizes can be substituted.
Included in the class will be demonstrations, slide presentations, great music and of
course the tremendous energetic lift that comes from working with friends.
Basic materials are included but can be supplemented with your own.
Come prepared for a whirl of self expression, and the very likely possibility that your
art can, in fact, become much more central in your life.

Course Fee $250 Please submit payment by mail or paypal to enroll. Additional info
will be sent upon enrollment.

Nicholas Wilton Artplane Creativity Series 480 Gate 5 Rd Ste 300W Sausalito, CA
nick@nicholaswilton.com studio 415 601 8447 www.artplaneworkshop.com

Nicholas Wilton Paintings Book!

Here is a new book on my paintings! You can preview it here or better yet purchase one for your art library!

Nicholas Wilton Collectors Edition 2011 by Nicholas Wilton | Make Your Own Book

Artplane Creativity Workshop 2011

We just returned from teaching a 7 day Artplane Workshop at Esalen along the Big Sur Coast. We had a tremendous group. Some participants were working artists, others had little or no experience, but by the third day all were making amazing work and from where i sat, having a tremendous amount of fun doing it. It is hard to imagine a better blend of things: Art making, eating delicious food (that you do not have to make or clean up after), laughing, wine, chocolate, good friends, and floating in hot springs at the end of a full day beneath a blanket of glistening stars.
While our workshop was going on there also was a workshop led by Kim Rosen on Poetry. It seemed everywhere you went on the property her students were handing everyone poems on scraps of paper. They were even floating them in the hot springs. It was quite delightful coming across a poem in your day or having someone just come along and present you with one. We all had them in our pockets and, as a result, decided to use the poems in our workshop. To offer a visual response, an answer to the poem elves generosity. We cut our 10 x 10 boards down to 4 or 5 in square and took fragments or lines of these poems and used them as inspiration to generate imagery. Below are a sampling of some of these poem boards made in the workshop.




I am going from memory so I apologize in advance if your artwork happens to not be here or is credited incorrectly. From top to bottom:
Diana Arsenian, Sharon Virtue, Christopher Chaffin, Sharon Virtue, Nancy Worcester, Jennie Oppenheimer, Barbara Kyle, Sharon Virtue, Nicholas Wilton, Ashley Jones, Jennie Oppenheimer, Nicholas Wilton, Jennie Oppenheimer.

Stremmel Gallery Show

Thought I would post a few pictures from my recent show at the Stremmel Gallery in Reno. The opening night turned out to coincide with the arrival of the worst storm of this last winter. I braved the mountainous drive to get there even though by the afternoon it was snowing pretty bad. I figured it would just be me and possibly the road snow plow guy at the opening. I had never shown at this gallery so when I walked in I was delighted to see how beautiful the work had been hung. This particular gallery has the spaciousness of a museum and the director, Turkey Stremmel and her crew are particularly good at designing shows. They understand how to use white space. Lots of open space between paintings only makes them look that much better. The gallery also have a consistent following so by the time the doors were opening there was quite a crowd for such a stormy night. Much of the work sold which made being snowed in Reno the whole next day perfectly ok. You never can tell how things will turn out.

New Studio

I have not written here since end of January...I have been incredibly busy the past 2 months moving into a new studio. After 15 years at least, working in and around my house in West Marin, I finally decided to move to a studio space that is more centrally located, one that has other working artists in it, a harbor complete with sailboats, seagulls and a general feeling of happy activity. I think, no I know, that many artists deal with feelings of isolation. Of course making art for most people is a solitary activity. This actually is a good thing. The difficulty comes when your left to work alone for ever and ever. I know for myself that staring at my own work for too long or maybe just working alone for too many days in a row starts to wear you down a bit. I remember when I worked in NYC in a small apartment, (If your not going out and your not seeing anyone all day then there really is no reason to get out of your pajamas...see how bad it can get?) and how, when the fed ex guy would come to pick up something, I would just talk his ear off. I would just try to keep the conversation going as long as he would stand there. When the only human contact you have is with the UPS or fed ex guy then it probably is time to change your working environment. This studio, I originally was going to share with someone and then greedily kept all 1,300 sq ft for myself, is located in the ICB Building in Sausalito, California. It is an enormous 3 story building that originally was used to manufacture sails for sailboats. There are literally hundreds of artists all piled in the building. I now work with one door open and have all the pleasant interruptions I want all day. Anyway, once I got here I wondered why I had waited so long. I never could justify a move for so many practical reasons such as having to drive, the cost, etc. But I possibly overlooked the one reason that should of trumped all others...I would be happier! Duh...

"Separation"

I just saw the work of an artist friend of mine, Carrie Leeb, at Ampersand, a small gallery in San Francisco. One of the more interesting pieces in the show was, for me "Seperation" a found rock installation. It is not really apparent from this photo (taken with an iphone no less) the actual scale of the rocks. The large ones are actually bowling ball size - probably the size limited by what was physically possible for her to carry to her car. I know, for a fact, that the artist drove somewhere up in Northern California and actually found these rocks. Found them all in this very same stage of division, of splitting, freshly apart, driven into two by the forces of nature. Possibly from this years especially cold Winter or perhaps Springs unannounced frosts. I know she spent many hours walking alone amongst the river stones searching for these particular rocks. I can imagine how it began ..a walk upon the edge of a river and stumbling upon a singular rock, unlike all others broken in two. And then this poignancy becoming reconfirmed again and again as still more are found. Oddly, there are possibly thousands of these same rocks all sharing this same instance of seperation and division. These gathering of stones remind me of the pivotal, rare moments in many people's lives that feel earth shattering, momentous, meteoric in the change they catalyze. I wonder if these rocks make a sound when they break apart after possibly millions of years together; that a heart doesn't in fact let out an audible cry when it lets go of things it has always held. Separation always seems to be nuanced by aloneness, a sense of sadness perhaps. However, Carrie's display, her meticulous stone gathering upon a wintery river bank has given us a reminder that in fact change is rampant in the lives of many people and that there are countless others just hidden from our view that are possibly navigating the very same kind of change. There is a small degree of reassurance in the notion that those of us who find ourselves in the wild storm of change are, in fact, not alone.
Ampersand "Walking on Thin Ice" January 21-Feb-18 1001 Tennessee St San Francisco

Life as Art

I was going for a run early one morning and I went past this guy setting up tubs of water and strings on the sidewalk. It was really early on a Sunday and no one was even around. I came back through town a couple of hours later and here was this same guy just making these extraordinary soap bubbles. It was still early in the morning so he was without an audience. I watched for awhile from my car and it became apparent that he was completely involved with it, just making these for the sheer joy of doing it. It's rare you see someone doing something for just this one reason. It's such a simple idea. That in the end, it is really one of the only reasons to do anything worthwhile. I walked across the street and stood next to him and when he was in between bubbles I just said "thank you" and without missing a beat or even breaking his bubble making he responded "your welcome"

Organizing Messy Things

Sometimes in all the information one comes across on the internet you find a little something that is helpful--the following post might be one of those, especially if you are a painter. The paint organizer shown below is a very helpful tool for the studio that I now cannot imagine being without. Basically it is a holder for all those messy paint tubes! I make them for my smaller acrylic paints and my large tubes of oil paint.
To make this yourself, take PVC piping (from the hardware store-it's very cheap) and cut off segments all the same length. For my oil paint I made the PVC tubes 5" tall--and the width the pipe comes is 2 1/4 ". You can get it almost any width to fit various paint tubes. Once you have all the segments they can be easily glued together into blocks of 16 or 20 using pvc cement. It dries in a minute and is very strong. In my studio I use 2 blocks of 20 and I keep all the cool colors on the left and the warm colors on the right. It makes it incredibly easy to find the right color, which at least for me, makes it just a little bit easier and faster to create the painting.

Potency of Place

I came across this abandoned farmhouse in Point Reyes, Ca. This incredibly beautiful area is bordered on 3 sides by the sea and Tomales Bay and is now a national park. Coast Miwok Indians lived here for Milllennia, and then in the 1850's immigrant dairy farmers arrived by boat from Switzerland, Denmark and the Portuguese Azores turning this area into one of the most productive dairy regions in California. Most of these farms are no longer operating but many of the buildings and barns of this time are still there. Although the houses and barns are empty now I can easily imagine those who struggled to make a new life in such a windswept remote landscape.

The older daughter is getting her hair cut on the porch whining to be done already, to be let free to go out into the fields of flowering clover, wild sage and blackberry. The din of bumblebees beckons her, the hum of an Indian summer that has gone on too long and especially the fragrance of alfalfa from the dairy, several fields away. Summer will end soon. The father is painting the house himself. Too proud to hire someone but also too poor. Planting the palm tree while his wife, holding their youngest child laughingly remarks that he will never be here to see it become full grown. He promises her it will grow fast. At least as fast as their two daughters, the second of which has now pulled free from her mother's hand, and is pushing her small perfect toes into the fresh turned soil of their new home. He pats the dirt around the base of the small slender palm with the back of his shovel. She holds onto her fathers left work boot and laughs. Her white cotton dress is darkened from the fresh earth. He wipes the sweat from his brow with the back of his sleeve and as he looks out across the fields towards the sea, realizes he is smiling.

Parts are Excellent

As I was putting together another email announcement of a show the other day I was thinking about how, depending on my feeling about my work at the time, this process can be easy or rather hard. I am not sure if most everyone understands that part of the process of making things, creating things is not really knowing sometimes where you are going. This is how it is for me. It helps to look over your shoulder at what you have made to give yourself direction but really it isn’t so important what was made in the past but rather what is being made presently. So how honestly can one be doggedly extolling the virtues of what you’re doing all the time even though part of the time you aren’t entirely sure? I have come to accept that you need to be lost sometimes if you are to change, to breakthrough, to improve. In fact out this struggle sometimes comes my best work. It seems to me to be somewhat of a deception to be constantly putting out the message that you have arrived when actually you got off at the wrong station and are just simply lost. I never want to admit it. I will be painting furiously for several hours and even though I do know a tremendous amount about what I am doing, I can get to a point where I can look at my painting that’s as big as me- (over 6 ft) and realize that I actually have no clear sense of what I have just done. It hits me so hard that I sometimes just have to sit down and stare at the ridiculous amount of intention, the sheer effort it took to wind up here, in a place that seems foreign and unfamiliar. Humbling is an understatement. It’s one of the great aspects of doing art that no two efforts are the same. Each comes with a new challenge, a new problem to solve. Sometimes it falls into place other times not. On a day when it doesn’t it is a difficult time to self promote. It’s challenging to encourage collectors to come to your upcoming show or to talk to a gallery about raising your prices. And actually, I don’t think we are hard wired to endlessly go on about ourselves and things we have done in the past. I tell my students that the hat of the promoter has nothing at all to do with your art, that it is a second kind of side business that is there only to insure the viability of the first. So it’s a challenge, I feel, that surely plagues many creative people but curiously it is rarely spoken about. I guess admitting unsure ness, hesitation runs counter to the assurance and brilliance we are all trying so desperately hard to convey.

Color in Nature

These photographs by Chris Jordan were taken on Midway Atoll in the middle of the North Pacific. These photographs document the remains of albatross chicks that have been fed, unintentionally by their parents, floating plastic garbage collected from the sea. Thousands of these baby birds die every year as a result. In Nature, all color harmonizes with all other colors. However, in manufactured creation, such as the making of plastic, the color often ends up being uncomfortably bright and as a result, unrelated to everything else in it's environment. Nothing demonstrates the unsettling nature of synthetic color juxtaposed with the sophisticated color of Nature better than these exquisite photographs.
http://www.chrisjordan.com/gallery/midway/#about

Principle #6 Soul

This is an excerpt from a book I am working on about Creativity. The book, like the workshops we teach, utilize 6 Principles as a framework, roadmap to allowing more artistry, more creativity into our lives. This excerpt is taken from the chapter on Soul, Principle #6. -NW

Aristotle defined Soul as the inner core, the essential essence of a person or a living thing. Sometimes, I believe however, an inanimate object can be imbued with this same essence. When enough passion and life force is contributed into the making of something, it almost seems magically to carry with, to hold within its center a small degree of this very same soulfulness. This aspect, this overflow of soul into a work is what transforms an activity, an effort, a creation into something more valuable and rare. It changes it, pushes it into an entirely new realm. It’s called Art.
The whole notion of creativity is about bringing something into existence that hasn’t existed before. Like magic, all manner of things can be made visible whether it’s a beautiful ceramic pot, a birthday cake, a painting or a marble sculpture. But here, and this being the very last principle of the 6, is where we can take a breath and relax. Because this Sixth Principle, Soul, develops in our work on it’s own. We simply need to be ourselves. Show up and pay attention as deeply as possible. And, this is important, we need to earnestly care about what we’re making. This intention, Soul, is the aspect of ourselves that is perfectly constant. It is carried inside us and is the primary thread, the guiding light of the creative arc of our life.
Interestingly, asking questions seem to be the easiest way to ease into an understanding about Soul.
Questions such as “What is important for you? What is engaging? What do you care about? These simple questions if answered truthfully will invariably lead us to the kind of creativity that results in work with a high degree of Soul. After all, if it is imbued with this quality then it will be, like you, totally unique. It will be yours. And it’s this uniqueness, this highly personal expression that creates the tremendous value to your work. Especially for others.
Sometimes it’s difficult to see this thread, this continuum in what we are making. Creative efforts are often accomplished in fits and starts. Changes occur rapidly and at other times not at all, but in the persistence of our efforts, it’s reassuring to know that if we consistently pay attention and put care into whatever we are making that much of our concerns about our apparent successes or failures will fall by the wayside.
It is, in the beginning, sometimes difficult to see the value of our own individuality. Especially so when much of our work, up ahead, cannot be seen as it lies quietly waiting in the future, unmade.
David Whyte, the poet, philosopher writes, “ If we can see the path laid out in front of us there is a good chance it is not our path. It is probably someone else’s we have substituted for our own.”
Rest assured, if we are paying attention earnestly, staying true to what is important and engaging to us then, much of our creative journey will take care of itself.

A Lemon Lemon

My Mother in Law picked this lemon off her tree. It obviously has some kind of different genetic coding than other lemons.
It just makes me wonder how it is that things stay as normal as they actually do.

Michael Kessler Studio Visit

When I was out in Santa Fe I visited Michael Kessler, an artist who lives just outside Santa Fe, NM. He came to my opening and I had actually just seen his work on you tube. He is extremely prolific not only with his paintings but with all aspects of his business. His videos are pretty great and he has made a lot of them. Thousands of people view and comment on them on YouTube. Whenever I visit artists I am always inspired. His work is beautiful but it was especially interesting to me to see a vetaran artist who has a pretty good sense of the business side of art. Michael has organized his studio so he can make his art panels, paint on several at the same time, photograph them, and crate and then send his work all without leaving his studio. All of these steps he does himself. I think people in art and businss get in the mindset that they have to hire people to do everything that they are not experienced at doing. I know I do. Michael, however, seems to have adopted a different attitude about the process of making art…he loves EVERY step and wants to do it all himself. As I drove back to Santa Fe I thought about how extroardinary this mindset is and how it can shift the entire way artists, or anyone for that matter, can think about their work. That not one part is better or easier, it’s just all one seamless journey, a highly personal process developed from passionate hard work.. …What I learned or maybe re learned that day was this: The entire process of making art can be as personal and as important as the art itself.

To see Michaels work: http://www.michaelkessler.com/

Show at Selby Fleetwood Gallery, Santa Fe

This year I had made all the paintings for the show "Life Fortune" almost 5 weeks early as I was out of the country for all of July. It was especially nice to not be painting up to the last minute - sending paintings barely dry. It also provided me with a fresh view of my work when, after not seeing it for over a month, I arrived at the gallery and was able to walk into a room and see it all hanging. The owners of the gallery, Selby and Eddie, had designed the show and it looked great. I had forgotten about the gallery walls actually being made of adobe and as a result have a gorgeous earthy brown color that sets off art beautifully. I really enjoyed getting to meet some of the people who have followed my work. The fact never escapes me that without those interested in my work, those people passionate enough about art that it must be a part of their lives, I wouldn't be able to afford to do what I love. Gratitude is not really a big enough word for how it makes you feel when someone supports and believes in what you make. I forgot to take pictures during the opening but snapped a few the next day. The sculpture standing below my painting is by Joe Brubaker.
I love his work and especially how this one looked standing next to my painting.

Standing Still

What is it about leaving your life for awhile, that makes everything seem so different, but the same upon your return? is it possible that just changing your background, your surroundings that shifts everything? When I am traveling I feel so artistically fulfilled and perfectly content to just look at things...To learn about new places, people's lives, to try to understand why things are as they are. My need to make art diminishes when I travel. I wonder if it is all about change? Change being the required ingredient in a fulfilling life-if your seeing new things constantly- such as when your traveling, then your fulfilled, content and pretty close to happy. At least this is the case with me. Put me in one place,( home) repeat the same experiences, the same drives, stores, etc and then I start making things again. The art is just more necessary to make when I am standing in one place.

Center for Children's Happiness

Our family has just returned home from Cambodia where we spent a couple of weeks with 150 amazing kids at an orphanage in Phnom Penh. Most of these kids are orphans and have been rescued, often around the age of 5 or 6, from living on the garbage dumps just outside of the city. The orphanage is a very uplifting place covered in decorations and photos of visiting friends who have helped this organization over the years. At the the head of this family of 150 children is an extraordinary man, Sokha who, along with his wife, look after and imbue these kids with love and a startling sense of self worth and respect not just for themselves but each other as well.
One of the projects we did with them was to write and illustrate your dream. What the future might hold if their dreams come true. The kids are all very clear about wanting to get educated and each have very clear ideas already about becoming doctors, engineers, english teachers, etc. At the Center for Children's Happiness, they are educated and many are eligible for scholarships to universities upon graduating high school. I have never experienced a more harmonious, kind and grateful group of young children in my life. We did artwork, photography, read books, sang and generally just spent time getting to know as many as we could. Our last night with them we had a party in the small cement courtyard of the Center. The kids danced and sang with such joy. It was so triumphant, so inspiring to experience. I will never forget it. This kind of happiness and gratitude maybe only comes from those who have been given a second chance at life.
The first 3 photos of the garbage dump below were taken by Sambath, one of the promising young photojournalists who lives at CCH. The photos below do not show the magnitude or the actual number of those living at the dumps. There are about 900 people who live and work there, picking through the city's refuse for recyclables and food. The two american girls in the photos are my daughters. To find out more about CCH and how you can help...http://www.cchcambodia.org/index.html