Susan Blackwood OPA

There are so many aspects to being an artist.

In the Beginning we start Exploring Mediums.…

At first, it’s how to hold the pencil or how to use an eraser (really! I remember my 2nd grade teacher showing us how to get the most out of using an eraser!)

Then comes color….

and the artist’s world explodes with joy and questions. When I was still in junior high, Magic Markers burst into the market and my world of pencils, pen & ink and crayons got even more exciting.

By College, My first love for color quickly became the challenge of taming the wild and unpredictable, translucent watercolors. It was not the passive medium of crayons and markers or tempera paint. With those mediums, I could put down a stroke with great confidence and it would stay put, but watercolors?!?!?!

Watercolors talked to me. Instead of sitting still on the paper, it wiggled and blurred and crashed into the other colors, creating all kinds of interesting chaos. It became a language I really wanted to learn. Sometimes we (watercolors and me) “laughed” together and sometimes we got into “arguments” frustrated with my impatience and lack of control. However, watercolors captured my heart and became my passion for more than 3 decades.

Watercolors became my career, I won my first honors, awards and recognition with this feisty medium. Along the way, I explored the art language of sculpture, too.

Then, in my timeline, when I married Howard Friedland OPAM in 1998, the thick and gooey world of oils entered my life. For the first 5 years, I watched his magic brushes push and slide this curious oil medium and before I knew it…, I had to dip my brushes

Into this language of three dimensional strokes. So in 2003, I discovered my art language had expanded to included oils.

Why am I telling you all this? Because each step of the way, I needed to be curious, be experimental, and be willing to struggle and not give up. But I was not alone. I had good Teachers and most important, good Mentors.

Teachers and Mentors: First for me were my mom, dad and even my grandpa… they were my teachers and my mentors. They were artists. Mom was a wonderful experimental hobbyist and explored lots of art mediums. Dad was a professional graphic designer by day. In the evening and on weekends he painted in watercolors and sculpted. Grandpa used pastels and created “Chalk Talks” for churches groups, (an evening of him painting with pastels to wonderful music and then mixing into the painting, invisible chalk that became alive when the lights went down and the black light was turned on.) At 6 years old I witnessed firsthand the power of art when the audience would gasp!

They were my first teachers and most importantly my first mentors.

My Teachers showed me “how”. My Mentors were and still are the “coaches” of my art world. Those words of my mentors have stayed with me and guided me for decades.

Sure Mentors, like Teachers, show you how to do and use and get better at whatever art medium you are using. That is what a good coach does. But most importantly, Mentors see your strengths and help you build on your own unique art abilities. Mentors also are aware of your individual personal art weaknesses and help you turn those weaknesses from hurting your paintings to strength in your paintings, from negatives to positives.

I give a lot of credit to my teachers that took the time to also be my mentors. It started in kindergarten and has never stopped. They are all around us.

AND I will always be grateful to all of my mentors especially:

My greatest mentors:

• Betty Swartwout – my mom
• David Swartwout – my dad
• Rudy Swartwout – my grandpa
• Don Strel – “Believe you can do anything” (College Professor)
• Irving Shapiro – “Plan your paintings” – “Paint with big brushes” (incredible watercolorist and instructor -American Academy of Art in Chicago)
• Phil Austin – “Embrace Plein Air Painting” (awesome watercolorist and my grandpa’s friend)
• Richard Schmid – “Tell only what is necessary” (spectacular watercolorist and oil painter, fellow staff member at Loveland Art Academy)
• Howard Friedland OPAM – “Paint as if you’ve never seen the subject before. See it as a child would see it for the first time.” (Amazing oil painter and wonderful husband)

Warning #1: Don’t think that mentors are there just to pat you on your back and love everything you create. You and I both know that feels good but doesn’t help us grow. A mentor needs to point out your weaknesses, in such a way that you are, at the same time, encouraged. A good mentor has the magic ability to critique your work and leave you excited to get right back to painting. A good mentor will point out what is glorious and also what needs to be fixed and in the process your art growth happens quickly.

Warning #2: Don’t expect your immediate family to be mentors. They will love everything no matter what you do.

Warning #3: Don’t expect your teacher to be a good mentor. Sometimes a good teacher and a good mentor just don’t come packaged in one person.

How to Find a Mentor: You want to discover a person that gives you both sides of the coin…. Will they tell you what they love and what needs to be changed? Or, find two persons, one person that tells you the areas they love in your painting and another person that you know will honestly tell you what doesn’t work. That was my world of mentors when I was growing up. As a young child, I quickly learned how to use my “mom + dad” mentor for my best success.

How I learned to be a Mentor: My mom loved everything I created and I cherished her for that. She graciously skipped over the stuff in my drawing or painting that needed to be fixed. But my dad didn’t do that, he went right to the elephant in the room to be fixed…

So as a little girl, I quickly learned to go to mom first and show her my artwork. She would oooh and ahhh and pump me up with joy….. Then I would go to my dad. My dad owned a graphic design studio and had a staff of artists he critiqued daily. So when critiquing his adult artists, he needed to go right to the spot that needed to be fixed and he would tell them how to fix it . . . without worrying about hurting their feelings.

That is how I formed my method of mentoring. After getting pumped up with confidence from my mom, I would show my dad and sure enough, he would go right to the heart of the matter and tell me what was wrong. As a child, that could be harsh to hear, but insulated with praise from my mom, I glided right past the hurt feelings and loved to hear what he had to say. What did I learn? Always wrap my critiques with support and encouragement in the beginning and again at the end.

(This critique method really worked because my sisters, Karen Vance – Oil Painter and Lindy Schneider – illustrator grew up and have become outstanding artists.)

I have a passion for teaching and being a mentor throughout my 50-year painting career. My joy is to pass on the knowledge given to me by encouraging the artist’s strengths and finding ways to reinforce his/her weaknesses. Each artist has a unique approach to their paintings. My job is to find those unique strengths and help the artist bring them out stronger and stronger. Through the years I have mentored many, many artists. Currently I mentor about a dozen artists from all over the world, one-on-one and also in group sessions.

I am also honored to be a critiquer for Oil Painters of America.

As artists, many of us are shaking our heads and wondering why we haven’t been painting during this time of “lock down” and isolation. 

We thought about it, had the time, but just didn’t have the will or energy to pick up the brush and slosh around those beautiful colors with brush strokes filling the heart with joy. The question is “Why didn’t we paint or feel inspired?”  The answer: We have been in, what I call, the cocoons. 

I have been teaching painting and drawing for 45 years. Through these years, there has been a common thread that runs through all of my adult students, women and men.  Many were artists in their younger years, loving the quiet inward time of pushing the pencil or swinging the brush. Very few artists have been artists their whole adult lives. They come to me, eager to learn to create again or create for the first time. Sometimes the student has taken a few classes in the past, only to fall back and put away the paint for years before picking up the brush again. When this happens, it is very normal. It happens to all artists, hobbyists and professional painters. It is the cycle of the living artist. 

Caterpillars are amazing creatures. They eat their way through life, never knowing there is anything else more wonderful than munching leaves. Then, their lives change and a strange new silk starts wrapping around their bodies. All goes dark and quiet, the caterpillar becomes encased, wrapped in it’s new stage of life. It seems for a while that there will be no more green leaves or sunshine for the little caterpillar. Then, one day the silks drop off of the caterpillar and out steps a new creature, one with wings. One that has the ability to fly quickly, to find new and exciting tastes in flowers.

My mother loved nature. She would point out beautiful colors in the bark of trees. Our family strolls along Lake Michigan with my sisters always resulted in our pockets coming home full of wonderful pebbles we found along the shore. One day she pointed out a beautiful chrysalis dangling from a twig on a tree in our front yard. Over the next 2 weeks we watched this little pod. Then, one day, she called to us to come quickly and see what was happening. The little “cocoon” was opening and a whole new creature was emerging into the sunshine. 

What the heck! Why am I writing about this caterpillar in an OPA Blog??? Well, we have all been through a very shocking, sad, emotional period. This virus has rocked our world. So many, many, many of our artist friends have not been able to paint, me included. We had the time, but not the spirit. We have been stopped in our tracks, stuck in the mud of life…. The threads of life, like the silks of a caterpillar, have tightly wrapped around us.

Through the years, I have talked about this happening to my artists. Over and over, life came, often unexpectedly, and started wrapping the artist tightly in silks. The brushes were forgotten, sometimes for months, sometime for years or decades. 

Nope, this is not a sad blog about wasted time, NO! There is more to the story. Read on….

Meanwhile, back at the chrysalis in our back yard, the butterfly was emerging, my sisters and I were jumping and squealing with joy. Then we fell silent. The poor little creature was not a beautiful delicate butterfly, but a horribly wrinkled tight little quivering mass. I started to cry. “Oh, Mommy, it is suffering!” 

“Just wait”, my mother gently said. So we did. The tiny creature kept shaking, quivering and jerking. I could barely look, I felt so sorry for it. Was it dying? “Wait” she quietly said again. 

So we did. The shaking didn’t stop but edges started to unfold. The wrinkles started expanding. It was pumping blood into it’s tiny new wings. The little masses started to stretch out. Over and over more blood was pumped and pumped. Quiver, quiver, shake, shake, we started to see the possibility of wings happening. We waited and waited. The shaking turned into up and down motions and as if by magic, beautiful wings unfolded and reached high above the creature.

Then it was tired. The wings continued to move but very slowly, resting in the joy of the new motion. Sometimes the wings even stopped moving, pressed together, as if in prayer. Was it, also, amazed and grateful at its transformation?

As artists, we live in 2 worlds, the real world and the world of creation. We live in a life that is full of changes, surprises, disappointments and joys. Over and over again the “Silks” of life wrap around us, unexpectedly, often silently, resulting in our brushes getting dusty. If the silks remain, the easel is put away, the canvas forgotten, the paint allowed to turn hard in their tubes. 

But wait, whatever it is or was in life, which wrapped the silks around you, (maybe you got married, have children, are caring for a relative, start a new job, move to a new location, or you have been sick), there are many reasons preventing you from feeling the joy of creating on canvas. Now, this is the exciting part…While we are in the cocoons, our creative juices are still flowing. They might be used to teach a child, help a mother or father or care for a friend. You might find yourself creating a special meal, or designing a garden, or a new decor for a room, or making a cabinet, or creating a get well card for a friend. Little ways and big ways, you are still the creative creature you have always been. You find yourself drifting into web sites of artists you admire, dead and alive. You look though books of paintings or a beautiful greeting card catches your eye. Your mind has not been stopped from growing as an artist even while the silks of life have engulfed your hands and heart in other matters. 

In time (could be weeks, months, years, or decades), one day, these silks unwind and slide away, even if your circumstances have remained the same. The silks keep falling away. You find yourself signing up for a painting class, or while cleaning out a closet you find your lovable brushes. Maybe a friend tells you about a new color. Something starts the process and the silks start falling away. 

When this happens, do like the little butterfly, start jiggling your wings and pumping blood. 

Pump pump pump! Set an apple under a light, Draw the apple on a small piece of paper or canvas, ( pump-pump-pump), Then, turn it into a tiny painting. Practice brush strokes, ( pump-pump-pump), Paint a single flower, add dramatic light. Throw yourself into the painting class you just signed up for, Purchase videos from your favorite artist watch YouTube painting Videos, Sign up for live Zoom art classes, Pump – Pump  – Pump those wings! 

Yes, when you come out of the confinement of the “Silks of Life” your artistic wings will be wrinkled. At first, your attempts to draw or paint will be frustrating and you might fear you lost your ability or desire to create, but keep pumping those wings. Like the little caterpillar, you will recover from the confinement to discover you are a new creature in art. Your abilities will come back and surpass the former artist in you and become the new and improved artist that can fly to heights unimaginable. 
Pump Pump Pump.

These horrific experiences which we mentally and physically are currently enduring have wrapped all of us into cocoons. Our artist juices have been frozen. The left side of our brains ( where all of the worries happen ) have been terrified and has overridden the creative right side of our brains. We have spent countless hours reconnecting with friends and family, watching the news, reading, waiting and social distancing. Art classes and workshops immediately stopped. Like all of the other scheduled shows throughout the world, OPA’s Show and Exhibition was immediately stopped and rescheduled.

So, how do we get our little cocoon to start falling away? Do it slowly: Thumb through a book of inspiring paintings Find out how many different brush strokes you can make with only one brush See how many colors you can make with just 3 colors Paint another apple with nice light on it and use as many colors as possible. 

Paint your cat Paint your dog 

Paint a series of paintings looking out different windows in your house Open a drawer and pick 3 things and create a mini still life and paint it, pull out 3 different colorful socks and paint a happy abstract of them all piled together 

Be sure to put on music you love with NO WORDS and a calm tempo. ( I recently started painting with earbuds in my ears. Using sound to surround me, my creative side soared.) Seduce your creative side to come out of hiding and when it starts coming out, do not be critical of anything it does. Yes, your wings will be wrinkled. Yes, your attempts might look clumsy and not as you used “to do”. But keep pumping blood into your creative wings. It typically takes some time to get your wings fully extended. Look out! You will soon be soaring higher than ever! 

P.S. These cocoons will come and go often in most people’s lives. Now you know, when the juices stop flowing, your circumstances are recreating you into a new “butterfly”.  You CAN set yourself free and you will be a new artist. I think you get the idea… now go with it. You don’t have to paint the most incredible landscape, still life, figure or portrait. Paint like you are pumping your wings with power. 

Then start flying with your brushes. Life is too short to let the silks in life wrap us up and force us to stop creating. You CAN choose when to let the silks fall off. We are all butterflies! Now get out there and FLY!