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THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY
OF ATHFEST.
VOLUNTEERS
ARE NEEDED
IN SEVERAL AREAS.
PLEASE CONTACT ANDY KOGERMA. ATHFEST VOLUNTEER COORDINATOR.
AT VOLUNTEE8INC9ATHFEST.COM FOR MORE INFORMATION.
We do not have a physical shelter to
hold our dogs, so we count on some
very special people to bring a dog into
their home until we find him or her a
permanent family.
Athens Canine Rescue pays all vet bills
and provides food. We just need foster
parents to provide a safe home and
plenty of love.
To learn more about the foster program,
please contact us:
foster @
athenscaninerescue.com
FOSTER
HOMES
Athens Canine Rescue
is holding an
Z&PSir
on
Saturday,
Feb. 25
from 10am - 12pm
at
Pawtropolis
on Athens West Highway
off of the Atlanta Highway.
For more Information
visit ACR’s website at
athenscaninerescue.com or call 549-4883
or email us at rescueQathenscaninerescue.com
Painter
I think nearly every painter hits a low point now and then, a
fleeting period where he asks himself, “Is this it? Is it time to
stop? Do I have anything left?*
Although it's understandable after coughing out a few flops in
the studio, such a crisis isn't what one expects after attending a
workshop conducted by one of the most respected landscape art
ists of our time.
For me, it all started when I went to see the Wolf Kahn exhibi
tion in March of 1999 at the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta, GA.
While there, I learned Kahn was conducting a plein-air workshop
a few days later in nearby Beech Island. My family had recently
added a second child to its collection, and giving up a whole day
was no minor loss. Still the potential value of meeting one of my
most admired living painters (and perhaps making him admire me)
won out, and I signed up.
After an incredible two-hour drive from Athens through fog
and toward a rising sun, I pulled into Redcliffe Plantation State
Historic Site in South Carolina. Knowing I was early, I pulled out
my sketch pad when I saw a vivid green field lined with trees just
touched by spring. I leaned on my car and began sketching in
earnest. But occasionally my mind conjured a fantasy: Wolf Kahn •
pulling in, accompanied by the Morris' paintings curator, and mar
veling at my work eth*c.
“Already at it, eh?“ he'd muse, sidling up to see what I was
working on. Awed by my sketch, he’d solicit my help in teaching
the workshop. This elaborate scenario would creep into conscious
ness every time I heard a car approaching.
When Kahn did arrive, he amiably chatted and signed catalogs,
then inquired about hot beverages. I immediately liked this man
and his roll-with-it attitude when told the plantation house wasn't
open until noon and there was no coffee. As Kahn sat us down on
the steps of the house and Degan speaking, I surveyed my 16 col
leagues and saw a collection of elderly “Sunday painters," mixed
with an occasional student. I felt confident that I was the only
“working artist" among them. I nodded knowingly at Kahn's asser
tion that most painters get too hung up on specifics, on object;
the result ends up more a collection of items than a breathing,
pulsing work of art.
Our “assignment" was to compose a drawing (or painting) from
nature that had no “things" in it, only observations of light and
color.
"A cinch," I thought, quickly finding a nice vista and boldly
beginning my masterpiece. I completed what was my usual sort
of drawing within 46 minutes. (“Usual" for me is an active, bold
■landscape with a lot of attention paid to light and interrelation
ships of objects.) I traveled to my next subject, a large field with a
.horizon of trees clustered and touched by the first colors of spring.
The piece was more muted than the first, and before long I began
wondering when I'd receive that first Wolf Kahn stamp of approval.
These drawings were going so well* on my big day I wasn't choking
at all. When I heard footsteps and then a cheery, “Here I come," I
turned and saw Kahn approaching.
“I don't like this," he grumbled, quickly sizing up my first draw
ing. “Or this. This is okay," he said to the picture I was working
on. “Do you have a Kleenex?"
“Uh, no." Did he think I was going to burst into tears? Maybe
he saw something in my expression. While Kahn fumbled in his
pocket, I had a chance to look at him up close. His face seemed
healthy and a little rugged. His white hair was thick and lively. He
was dressed in well maintained flannel and denim, like a well-off
retiree getting ready to chop wood.
"Here's one," he said, pulling out a tissue and proceeding to
wipe out the lower third of my masterpiece. “See, all this had way
too much contrast. Look at it. It's not really the way you had it.
“Nor was this," he continued, abolishing my lively, vivid hori
zon with his now pastel-dust-caked Kleenex. My heart continued
its steady descent.
“And over here. On the left. It's not really at that angle, is it?"
On one hand, I was intrigued, because this was Wolf Kahn, and my
drawing now had Wolf Kahn marks on it.
On the other, I was crushed.
Perhaps it was a defense mechanism, because I had come way
too far to tolerate being crushed, but my respect for the man
plunged. What about the artist's interpretation? Do we all have to
see things like Wolf Kahn in order for Wolf Kahn to approve? This
doctrine didn't seem compatible with his very subjective, at-times-
color-exaggerated landscapes. Did he really see bubble-gum pink
in barn roofs, or Day-Glo orange in sunrises? From what I'd seen,
things aren't the way Kahn often rendered them. Judging by the
way the other attendees avoided Kahn during lunch, leaving him
alone with the Morris curator at a separate table, I wasn't alone in
my disillusionment.
Later on, we got to see the master at work. A few of us casually
crowded around him as he rendered an old-barn-and-meadow scene
with pastels. It was reassuring to see someone so accomplished
struggling with the same issues we all grapple with: chaotic lines
trying to look like trees, crumbling pastel sticks littering the pa
per, geometry that doesn't quite ring true. Yet I knew he'd get it
right once he took the drawing back to the studio.
At around 3 p.m., figuring I'd gotten everything out of the
experience ! was going to get. I departed. I may not have said
goodbye. I had a lot of thinking to do on my way home.
Nearing the age of 40, knowing I'd been at this art thing for
almost 20 years, I tried to remember how I'd envisioned my future
when I started. Surely by middle age, I would have gotten past lo
cal acclaim and earned some national stature. It hadn't happened.
And now here was Wolf Kahn telling me point-blank, "You need
someone to correct your very wrong pictures." I wondered if it was
time for the everything-must-go studio sale.
Even the B-52s tape playing on my car stereo on the way home
couldn't drown out the voice asking, “Got a Kleenex?" On 78, just
west of Augusta, things began to change. The doubts were invaded
and then replaced by a sense of wonder at the landscape speeding
past my car. Heading northwestward, I witnessed early spring mor
phing back into late winter. Such lovely open vistas, such beautiful
old farmhouses and bams. If I gave up painting them, who was
going to make them feel appreciated? I kept on driving; the next
day I kept on painting.
Greg Benson
18 FLAGPOLE.COM • FEBRUARY 22,2006
WOLF KAHN AT WORK- COMPLIMENTS JERALD MEIBERG GALLERY