Home from France

If you've noticed a slowdown in my usual pace of posting, it's because I have been away in Provence, on a painting trip.  So wonderful to get back, after a hiatus of two years due to COVID!

"Murs Overlook"

9 x 14, Oil on Linen

(c) Lesley Powell 2022

The world continues to change, but the land endures.  This trip, I found myself drawn to paint the landscape just as often as the village scenes.  As a city dweller, I don't often get to see sweeping vistas like those provided by the Luberon area of Provence.  Or to enjoy the fruits of local agriculture! Looking out at the patterns of cultivated fields is a joy--as is eating the cherries, apricots and other delicacies that spring from them.

"Lavender and Clouds", 10 x 10, Oil on Linen, (c) Lesley Powell 2022

This trip happened in a heat wave ("canicule"), but we endured. Painting outdoors was possible, even comfortable in the mornings, but afternoons were often unbearable.  Temperatures often neared 100 degrees. After lunch siestas became the norm.  One plus of the heat is that it brought out the lavender much earlier than normal.  It's hard to beat the experience of standing amidst the lavender and inhaling that wonderful aroma while painting,

"Villars Hillside"

8 x 8, Oil on Linen

(c) Lesley Powell 2022

Once the jet lag abates, I plan to post more work from the trip, so stay tuned...

Whetting my Appetite

"Ménerbes"

Nicolas de Staël

 

After missing the last two summers in Provence, I am now preparing to return. I have cancelled so many trips since COVID--I'll believe it if and when I actually arrive!  One thing I am really looking forward to is the opportunity to explore  the village of Ménerbes in more depth.  I'm not interested in the Méberbes of Peter Mayle (author of the bestseller "A Year in Provence"). My attraction is to the Ménerbes of Nicolas de Staël.  And the Ménerbes of Dora Maar, a romantic partner of Picasso and subject of many of his paintings, who was an artist in her own right.

"Agrigente"

Oil on Canvas, 60 x 81 cm

Nicolas de Staël, 1953-54

Painted in Ménerbes

De Staël lived in Ménerbes in the mid 1950's, and produced some magnificent work there.  I have written all about that period of his paintings earlier, so I won't repeat myself.  These are my favorites among all of de Staël's paintings--such brevity, such color, such strength, nothing wasted!  The top image is his painting of Ménerbes itself.  

The house de Staël bought and lived in in Ménerbes still stands (photo above).  In fact, the house was home to the British food guru Elizabeth David, before de Staél.  (It starts to seem that all roads lead to Ménerbes...). How I wish there were an opportunity to go inside.

"Portrait of Dora Maar"

Pablo Picasso

Happily, that opportunity does exist for the house where Dora Maar lived.  Dora Maar bought the house in 1944 after breaking up with Picasso.  She spent every summer there, painting in the isolation of the small rural village.  After her death, an American patron of the arts, Nancy Brown Negley, bought the house and renovated it.  It now hosts residencies for artists and writers. And you can book an in person tour!  

Portrait of Pablo Picasso

Dora Maar, 1936

This summer La Maison Dora Maar is mounting an exhibit with works by Nicolas de Staël, Dora Maar, and others who painted in Ménerbes in the 20th century.  Can't wait to check it out!  

Provence Beckons

This post is an alert to faithful readers that my newest collection of paintings has just been uploaded to my website.  It's titled "Provence Beckons", and it features scenes from Provence that have inspired me over the years.

"Luberon Clouds"

6 x 6, Oil on Linen, Mounted on Board

(c) Lesley Powell 2021

(SOLD)

This year, for the second year in a row, the painting workshop In Provence with Maggie Siner was cancelled due to COVID.  I've only missed three summers there since 2011! To ease my longing for the fields and villages that I have come to love, I visited them through paint.  I worked from drawings, photos, and plein air studies.  Even memory and imagination played a part.  All of those ingredients went into the new collection. 

I discovered that painting Provence is the next best thing to being there!  If you too have wanderlust, I hope that you will enjoy looking at the new collection.  You can see all of the paintings by clicking here.

"Welcome Home"

9 x 7.5, Oil on Paper, Mounted on Art Board

(c) Lesley Powell 2021

And in case you wonder how one of the paintings might fit in your home, I'm illustrating this post with shots of a couple of the paintings in situ at my house.  The opportunities are endless for paintings this size.  And they make great gifts for art lovers or Francophiles. Enjoy!

Missing Provence

Untitled
30 x 40, Oil on Canvas
(c) Lesley Powell 2020

This is the week that I planned to be heading off to Provence, to start a month long painting adventure. Alas, those plans have been scratched, due to COVID-19.  

Untitled
25 x 40, Oil on Canvas
(c) Lesley Powell 2020

My summers in Provence over the past eight years have always brought new challenges and sparked growth in my paintings. To keep that trend going, I have been delving deep into my "archives" of plein air paintings from France. I have accumulated many small paintings and studies done on location, which have become jumping-off points for new, larger paintings.

"Amidst the Lavender"
20 x 30, Oil on Canvas
(c) Lesley Powell 2020

These on-site paintings are like my "brains". I take that term from the late Charles Movelli, who wrote that painters who work on the spot often call these paintings their brains.  He notes that the painters rarely sell these paintings. Why hold onto them? Because they are the ground from which springs more fruit. As the great landscape painter John Constable said, "I don't mind parting with the corn, but not with the field in which it was raised!"

"Uphill Climb, Ménerbes"
30 x 20, Oil on Canvas
(c) Lesley Powell 2020

I'm illustrating this post with some of the larger scale paintings I've "raised" from my smaller, on-site paintings. You can see more robust images on my website here.  Thanks for looking!

Announcing Maggie Siner's Landscape Workshop

Painting on location in Maggie Siner's workshop

It has become an annual ritual in recent summers--participating in Maggie Siner's total immersion painting workshop in France. Yes, total immersion is the key. It is the closest thing I have ever experienced to living in the proverbial artists' colony, where concerns of the world are far away, and energies are focused exclusively on painting. 

We are lodged in a charming little hamlet in Provence, in structures dating back to the 1500's. The French word for "hamlet" is "hameau". I am told that a true "hameau" consists of ancient farm buildings that have been repurposed to form a community of small dwellings. In our case, one of the buildings used to be a stable or barn. It has been lovingly restored, and now houses a painting studio, with sweeping views over the Luberon valley. Sometimes it's hard to keep my mind on the critique of the day's work, when my eyes are drawn outside to a magnificent sunset.

"House in the Lavender"
Oil on Canvas, 8 x 11
(c) Lesley Powell 2019
(Available)

Maggie keeps us on our toes, with several painting sessions each day. We go to one location in the morning, and a different location in the afternoon. Maggie chooses the locations so that each one is designed to help us see and implement the lesson she will convey. Sometimes our hosts bring a picnic to us out on location, and we are able to continue painting until sundown. The sun doesn't set until about 9:30 pm, so the painting days are long. The last light of the day is magical.

"Quiet Hamlet"
Oil on Linen, 12 x 8
(c) Lesley Powell 2019
(SOLD)

Dates have been set for 2020--the workshop will run from July 4 to July 11. You can see all the details on the website here. Applications are now being accepted. Time to start dreaming and planning for the summer... 

Close to "Home"

"Just Down the Road"
8 x 8, Oil on Linen
(c) Lesley Powell 2019

On the recent painting trip to Provence, my husband and I stayed in a tiny hamlet in the countryside of the Luberon. The valley there is dotted with small settlements of just a few families. Such a little group of houses is often called a "hameau", or hamlet.

During the heat wave, I would get started early in the morning, while the temperatures were still cool (well, at least they were cool-er!). To save time and energy, I would often set up my easel just down the road from our rental house. I painted several scenes in our own little hamlet--which turns out to be a wonderful way to meet the neighbors! 

"Road Shadows"
12 x 9, Oil on Linen
(c) Lesley Powell 2019

Everyone was fascinated that I would paint his street or her house. One fellow told me that there were far more glamorous and eye-catching things to paint nearby, like lush lavender fields, or sunflower fields. I don't speak enough French to explain that I was looking for shapes of light and dark, rather than a particular subject--and that it's way more fun to take a plebeian scene and make a beautiful painting out of it, than to take a gorgeous scene and try to rival nature's own beauty.

"Gated House"
16 x 10, Oil on Linen
(c) Lesley Powell 2019

One of the amazing things about plein air painting is that the painter absorbs so much of the environment during the painting process. Neurologically, there is something about the heightened awareness involved in painting that causes sounds and smells to become permanently a part of your consciousness of the moment. In fact, I really enjoy hearing all the local noises when I am painting. On this trip I even joked that I should name my paintings for the sounds I heard while painting them, which are indelibly etched in my mind: "Glee Club Practice ('Come to the Cabaret')"; "Mowing the Hayfield"; "Bullfrogs Splashing", "Game of Boules", etc.  And I'm not kidding!

"Pink House"
16 x 8, Oil on Linen
(c) Lesley Powell 2019

I also ventured pretty far off road to paint some landscapes--devoid of human structures, these are pure earth and sky. They'll be coming up in a future post...stay tuned...

Unpacking France

Greetings--if you have noticed a hiatus in my normal posting schedule, it's because I have been traveling and painting in France. I spent the first week in a landscape workshop with the inimitable instructor Maggie Siner. Then I stayed on in the Luberon area of Provence to paint independently for two more weeks. Such a treasured time!

"Murs, Top"
10 x 10, Oil on Linen
(c) Lesley Powell

There are lots of "cute" scenes in Provence--quaint little houses, colorful window boxes of flowers, pretty blue shutters, charming cafés. They are tempting subjects, but I also want to paint other things. I remind myself of the words of Ranier Marie Rilke: "Avoid those forms that are too facile and ordinary". And Frank Hobbs: "You have to experience a place deeply in order to get past the obvious exoticisms that captivate tourists."

"Murs from a Distance"
10 x 16, Oil on Linen
(c) Lesley Powell 2019

Though I am still a tourist, after eight summers in Provence, I am starting to get past the surface and feel a deeper connection to the land and its habits. The sounds of the birds and the cicadas, the rising of the moon, the cooling of the earth overnight, and its warming through the day. I am drawn to the subtle shifts in colors seen from a high vantage point, as the fields and mountain ranges slip further and further into the distance.

"Atmospheric Hills"
8 x 16, Oil on Linen
(c) Lesley Powell 2019

I love to see the marks of centuries past that are still visible in stone villages today. The perched village (village perché) always draws me in. I like the cubist look of the structures, and the way they tumble down the hill. Their drama stems from the fact that they were built on high for defensive and fortification purposes. Often topped by a church or a chateau, they all have a stories to tell, sometimes dating back to Neolithic times, often to Roman times.

"St Martin"
15 x 10, Oil on Linen
(c) Lesley Powell 2019

From exploring village life, to going far "off road", my sojourn in Provence has been deeply satisfying. Stay tuned for more details as I unpack...

Announcing Maggie Siner's 2019 Workshop in France

"Les Bassacs Farmhouses"
8 x 12, Oil on Linen
(c) Lesley Powell 2018

Faithful readers know that one of my annual rituals is attending Maggie Siner's painting workshop in Provence. It's a highlight of my year. My husband asks how I can keep going back to the same place, with the same instructor, year after year--he thinks that would get boring. My reply: Au contraire!! I'm excited that the dates have been set for next year (details here).

"Fields near Ochre Woods"
12 x 16, Oil on Linen
(c) Lesley Powell 2018
Available at Huff Harrington Fine Art

Though we stay in the same little hamlet every year, Maggie always scouts out new painting locations. Each location is carefully chosen to help us understand and implement the lesson of the day. The "lessons" are a series of building blocks to help us learn to see and to paint.

I use the term "lessons", but actually the experiences far outstrip that meager word. The workshop is a total immersion

I'll be Brief...

"Fresh Cut Fields"
7 x 14, Oil on Linen
(c) Lesley Powell 2018
(SOLD)

On my recent painting trip, the focus was the landscape. I spent a great deal of time and effort breaking the landscape down into its simplest elements. I have learned this much from studying with the wonderfully talented Maggie Siner: if you get the foundational aspects of the landscape down correctly, the "details" practically take care of themselves. And on the flip side, if you DON'T get the foundational aspects in place correctly, no amount of tinkering with details can save you.

"Murs Hilltop"
7 x 14, Oil on Linen
(c) Lesley Powell 2018
(Available)

I have written a great deal in this blog about "simplification"--so much, in fact, that the phrase is probably growing tiresome.  I have been thinking of a new way to express this concept, and have come to call it "brevity". I want to convey the landscape with brevity--telling you enough, but not too much. I want to involve the viewer in the painting, so that the

Home from Provence....

"Murs, Beyond the Wheatfields"
12 x 16, Oil on Canvas
(c) Lesley Powell 2018

There is nothing like a total immersion painting experience to re-charge your batteries! I have just returned from three weeks of painting in the south of France. The first week was devoted to a workshop with the immensely gifted painter and teacher, Maggie Siner. The next two weeks were consumed with independent painting--a perfect time to cement some of the lessons from the workshop.

"Fields off Chemin des Pradelles"
12 x 16, Oil on Linen
(c) Lesley Powell 2018

We missed the lavender this year--it had all been harvested by the time we arrived in Provence. But on the bright side, the wheat had also been recently cut. That meant that we got

Provence, Distilled

"Road above Bonnieux"
6 x 8, Oil on Paper
(c) Lesley Powell 2018
$195

With this post, I am excited to unveil a new series of paintings! I have been working on these for a number of weeks, and want to tell you a little bit about them. Faithful readers know that I love strong, straightforward shapes. I am also drawn to the beauty of simplification.  But as one of my posts is titled, "Simple isn't Easy". That's an understatement, for sure! It has taken a great deal of study, thought and work at the easel to bring these concepts to fruition in the new paintings.

"Provence, Distilled: Amber Waves of Grain"
5 x 10, Oil on Paper
(c) Lesley Powell 2018
$225

My mantra for this series comes from Maurice Denis, a founder of the Nabis. Denis wrote, "Remember that a picture -- before being a battle horse, a female nude, an anecdote or whatnot -- is essentially a flat surface covered with colors assembled in a certain order." In modern parlance, I would say "A painting is made of shapes of color". In the new series, I wanted to let the shapes speak out. I avoided too much modeling, or detailing of the objects.

"Provence, Distilled: Sunset Afterglow"
6 x 6, Oil on Paper
(c) Lesley Powell 2018
$150

The new series also springs from a concept that Felix Vallotton (another Nabi) used with great success. He called it the "paysage composé", or, loosely translated, the "put together landscape". Vallotton would make sketches of landscapes and take notes on location. Back home in the studio, he would put together paintings using various elements from different sketches.  He thus created landscapes that did not actually exist in nature, but represented something universal.  I have taken a page from Vallotton's book, freely moving trees or fields in some of my paintings in order to make a painting that hints at the universal aspects of the landscape. 

Paintings (c) Lesley Powell 2018

But my paintings are far from imaginary. They are all based on plein air paintings I have completed on location in Provence. I have used the colors seen with my own eyes on location, and put those colors into shapes that tell the gesture of the land. I have simplified a copse of trees into a simple dark block, a vineyard into a stripe of green. I call this "distilling" the elements of the landscape. Hence my title of the new series, "Provence, Distilled".  Despite the simplicity of these paintings--or maybe because of it--I hope that the viewer will feel a sense of distance and appreciate the sweeping character of the landscapes.

Paintings (c) Lesley Powell 2018

These are small paintings, on Arches oil paper--a beautiful, archival paper, specially made for oil paintings.  Most of them are priced between $150 and $195 (unframed). I think they make very handsome pairs or groupings, such as the ones above. I'm even including a photo (below) showing a frame treatment that would look fantastic. You can check out the full collection by clicking here--thanks for taking a look!   (PS: Flat rate shipping of $10 per painting).

Frame option (Artist Unknown)

Coming Attraction

Nicolas de Staël in his studio, 1954
(c) Denise Colomb

You can hardly imagine my excitement when I realized that I would be in Aix-en-Provence this summer in time to see an exhibition devoted to one of my favorite artists, Nicolas de Staël. What good fortune! The exhibit, aptly titled "Nicolas de Staël in Provence", will show eighty of his paintings and drawings. All of them date from the period between July 1953 and October 1954. This is regarded as one of the most important periods of de Staël's  career--and it's my personal favorite.

"Menerbes"
Oil on Canvas, 16 x 22 cm
Nicolas de Staël, 1953

De Staël was born into an aristocratic Russian family in 1914. In fact, at age two, he was already a page at the Court of Emperor Nicolas II. One year later the Russian Revolution forced his family to flee to Poland. The details of his biography are fascinating, but too long to explore in this post--you can learn more here.

Due to various twists of fate, de Staël remains unknown to most people, especially in the US. But as Michael Klein (a NY art dealer and curator) has written, "For many painters, he is just this side of a minor saint." De Staël's work is often characterized as abstract, but de Staël himself resisted that classification. He insisted that there was always a subject. Like Richard Diebenkorn, he evolved away from an early period of more abstract painting, and came to paint real "things". I have read that sometimes de Staël even took his gear out on location and painted en plein air.

"La Route"
Oil on Canvas, 65 x 81 cm.
Nicolas de Staël, 1954 

After a rather nomadic life, de Staël was ultimately drawn the the warmth of the South of France. He bought a house in Menerbes, a small hill town in Provence. (Menerbes is the subject of the first painting above). It is the work done here that will be featured in the exhibition in Aix this summer. I love these paintings! When he moved to Menerbes, de Staël had just returned from a trip through Italy, where he was particularly taken with Sicily. He wrote about evenings with yellow skies, red seas and violet sands. Back home, de Staël  worked furiously to recreate these amazing landscapes. He worked from memory and from notes taken on the trip.

"Agrigente"
Oil on Canvas, 35 x 51 1/2 inches
Nicolas de Staël, 1953

De Staël created these landscapes by applying thick slabs of brilliant colors. He used a strong vanishing point to hold all the shapes in place.  He was a master at capturing the essence of a vista using simple shapes of color. Some might call these works "abstract",. But I see in each of them a particular landscape, portrayed very believably, yet without detail. Here's what one critic, Brett Baker, wrote about de Staël's painting "Agrigente" (pictured just above):

 "Agrigente...initially appears to be an abstract painting loosely influenced by landscape. This painting changes, however, before your eyes into a carefully observed, specific view. The unreproducible orange of the sky doesn’t hold a spatial plane the way it would in an abstract painting - as a wedge of space - rather it conveys the infinite, and does so as convincingly as any blue ever has. The same orange, cut with nearly imperceptible additions of red, holds both discrete middle and foreground spaces in the picture. In this painting, de Staël’s color is not color, it is light and heat as they travel across space. The effect can only be experienced in person."

"Sicile (Vue d'Agrigente)
Oil on canvas, 114 x 146 cm
Nicolas de Stael, 1954

If you too want to experience the works in person, here's the scoop. Of course, I don't know exactly which paintings will be included in the show. I hope that some of the ones pictured in this post will be there--several of them are from private collections. I am always excited to see works from a private collection, because they are available to the public only for a rare glimpse. Closer to home, the Bechtler Museum in Charlotte has a de Staël painting, and the Philips Collection in Washington, DC, has a number of them. For the time being, we can enjoy these images online. And see more of my thoughts on de Staël here. Thanks!

"Soleil"
Oil on Canvas, 16 x 24 cm
Nicolas de Staël, 1954

Announcing Maggie Siner Master Class 2018

13 x 10, oil on linen
(c) Maggie Siner 2016

Exciting news--the calendar is set for Maggie Siner's painting workshop in France this summer! We will be painting in Provence from July 21 to July 28, 2018.  You can check out the details here. 

Farm with Black Hedge
11 x 17, Oil on Linen
(c) Maggie Siner 2016

We will be staying in the tiny hamlet of Les Bassacs, nestled in the heart of the Luberon. Far from the tourist crowds, we will explore sweeping countryside vistas, ancient perched villages, agricultural fields, and even Roman ruins. Maggie used to live in this area, and she has a native's grasp of the landscape. She has scouted out the painting locations that are