There are two things I like doing the most: travelling new places, meeting friends, and painting in my studio. Unfortunately I like painting much more. Unfortunately, as it is quite harder and sometimes people don’t get I just need that loneliness in my studio. Yet, it is right in the studio, painting, when I can travel the most beautiful landscapes across the space and time. Like painting this canvas in the yellow, red and blue: still remember getting a set of three oil crayons from Talens, as about 5 years old girl: yellow, turquoise and red. Pure happiness holding these three colors in my hand as a kid has remained in my heart till today and painting this canvas has brought back all these memories……
Small still life, Tamara Jare, oil on canvas, 2020
Small still life from times of isolation. I love painting fresh flowers from the garden. Those here are some twigs of pink baby rose in a vintage ceramic vase. Vase has that old green color of glaze that reflects the colors so beautifully. And the shade of pink roses is, similarly, the one almost pale, easily bending into color scale of its surrounding. Yet this time the reflection was more of an internal sort of, I painted the reflections and shades in flowers in colors of my optimism, at the time hoping the quarantine was ending soon. Although, sadly enough, we are still in pandemics, this small still lifereminds me of the fact, that better times are coming, inevitably. And there is no need for a big canvas to express this hope, this small format will do it, for it comes from the bottom of my heart……
May bouquet, painted obviously in May, in the spring of 2020, that has changed so profoundly the world we know. Yet, no matter what, the spring does come each year.
Each year makes me particularly happy to see our old garden phyladelphus is starting to bloom. Sweet scent of hundreds white little stars wraps up the garden, sun is getting warmer and in a couple of days first purple iris-es open, usually accompanied by the roses.
I guess each gardener will recognize that feeling one gets just after picking the fresh flowers to make a bouquet. Bringing all those flowers inside, one needs to find a vase big enough to display all the colors just brought in. And as you put the bouquet on the table to watch the flowers closely, even, so to say, with an inner eye, then you can see the spring avakening, bursting and flowering after a long winter. Looking closer it seems almost like flowers are dancing, moving around each other, just to reach sky and to blossom into the spring. It is a sort of vertigo like feeling. Remembering when the last spring took part one gets almost absorbed into all the colors and patterns of nature bursting into spring again.
So here it is, my May bouquet. Please, have a close look at the flowers from my garden and feel the vertigo of all the colors of a new spring……
Visiting Ostia Antica, archeological site near Rome, I got stuck with the strong experience. Walking down the streets of the town extinct centuries ago I felt like the ruins were in a way still communicating with us, visitors from today. Tranquility of the noon was full of bright colors under the blue sky. Only crickets interrupted summer heat, singing the same old song since ancient times. And it almost seemed like some Roman inhabitants might come out from the old house, going to visit the neighbors.
Staying in isolation this spring, some of those memories from Rome have returned to me. I’ve kept asking myself , how fragile our lives, our civilization are….What is staying behind us when we are all gone one day?Would there be a visitor wandering ruins of our civilization? Having those thoughts I’ve got the certain feeling that the light, colors might even then be just the same as they are now and as they have been centuries ago…..And this assumption of at least light and colors not changing have brought me some sort of calm in the times of isolation….
My paintings collection made in the time of isolation:
Ostia Antica I. , Tamara Jare, oil on canvas, 2020Ostia Antica II. , Tamara Jare, oil on canvas, 2020Ostia Antica III., Tamara Jare, oil on canvas, 2020
Update:
Happy to announce a painting from this series has been chosen for a juried international art show Social Distancing International Virtual Exhibition by Michael Rose Fine Art. Browse the exibition and check which artwork from the Ostia Antica series is participating 😉
Vintage art book or ”what is one man’s crap is another man’s treasure”
Last week I ‘ve happened to get a wonderful vintage art book. I’ve passed by a bookshelf, in public space, with a note attached on it. It read: Take with you as many as you want 🙂 Bring some you don’t need any more:)
The bookshelf was rather full. It seems people are energetically following Ms. Condo and books obviously aren’t very sparkly possession for many. Anyhow, I’ve looked closely as one never knows what can be hidden in such a library full of thrown away books. It turned out I really absolutely had to save one book, the one sitting alone among many How to do manuals, Cookbooks, Crime novels and Love stories. It hasn’t appeared as something like a new book, with the cardboard envelope even a bit torn down. But then inside this envelope, there were six lovely notebook like booklets. As I’ve read the title I’ve decided it goes with mes. For as said before: ”what is one man’s crap is another man’s treasure” .
The book is actually first part of four books series by Schmiedeberg Blume. The first tome is titled Grundlagen der Technik und Komposition and it is basically a textbook for painters. Printed in Berlin in 1927!
I am extremely happy I’ve rescued this book, reading it now and enjoying it’s vintage illustrations. Noticing some things haven’t changed that much in the last 100 years.
Have a look at some illustrations, aren’t they just marvelous?
Tamara
Ps: This weekend picking some books from my library to put on that bookshelf, hope to make someone happy 🙂
Some illustrations to enjoy
Cardboard envelope a bit torn down, will mend itGerman textbook for painters, printed in Berlin, 1927vintage illustration of easels, photo Tamara Jare illustration of watercolor tubes, Pelikan, Hannover, Germany, photo Tamara Jare book illustration, different painting brushes, photo Tamara Jareartist textbook illustration, two palettes for oil painting, photo Tamara Jaresaved artist textbook illustration, Pelikan ink bottle, photo Tamara Jare Vintage artist textbook illustration, wooden box for oil painting, photo Tamara Jare
From my studio Tamara Jare still life painting oil on canvas
From my studio is my first painting freshly finished in 2020. And I am happy with it. Mostly so as here I’ve painted all what I hope to be with me well on into New year. Window with a view. Colors. Art. Painting. Literature. Nature. And a cup of coffee.
Window with a view at the painting happens to be the actual window in my art studio. I am happy and grateful I have a place to work. View from this window has appeared in several paintings of mine, especially so as it is really a part of my world perception. How many times have I, from the childhood on, looked trough this window. With my gaze resting on near by hills, forest, gardens, sky. Thinking about my work. So this is the window I’ve painted here, together with the view, the nature and the blue sky I love so much. Yet I take window as a symbol , too. What would an artist be without a view, view in a symbolic, broader sense? Without broad sight no art is possible.
Colors have been part of mine since I do remember. My early memories are panopticum of colors. I’ve grown up in an art studio and there have always been colors in physical sense around me. And there has been a lot of conversation about colors all the time. I find color even in nuances of black or white, but couldn’t live without all the colors a sunny day brings. Or a rainy day. Absolutely does not mater as long as there are colors. For my perception of the world is trough the chromatic values of the visible spectre.
Art. Art as the highest and purest form of communication. Painting being the art I live for. Represented with the palette on this still life. .
Literature makes me happy since I’ve learn to read and write. Among the books on the pile is I Ching I’ve got from my parents, for my 20th birthday. One of the books that have shaped me and my life.
Nature helps me survive. Creating art or even life itself can get exhausting but a walk in the forest instantly gives me energy. Or an hour spent in the garden. Or painting flowers. And as it gets so interwoven I’ve painted the colors on the palette to resemble the nature. Equally the color of the drapery on the table is meant to bring greenery of the nature inside the studio. And to ask us: where all these colors came from, where the view leads us, what is reality and what is the painting?
A lot of sentences for a modest art blog like mine. Time for a cup of coffee served in vintage porcelain over the pile of books in the studio. What the 2020 will bring ? A broad view on art from my studio would just do it!
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